Petrichor
by MollyBananahammock
Summary: "Now that rain has stopped, and I've put down my umbrella and this sweet smell of petrichor is everywhere. This whole new world has opened up to me, and I can thrive in it... With you, Alex, I can thrive." Alex and Piper meet on a beach in Cancun and share a night together that they'll never forget, but can Piper find the bravery within her to follow her heart?
1. Chapter 1

_Petrichor - A sweet smell that is produced after rain falls on parched ground_

I saw her first.

At least, I'm almost sure I did.

The reason escapes me as to what made my gaze linger on her for longer than it usually would - women haven't ever exactly been my thing. Not really. I mean, yeah, sure, I've looked at them before and been able to appreciate and admire their beauty, but with her it was more than that. It was different. I was instantaneously captivated by her.

This woman, whoever she is, caught my eye from the other side of the pool. Walking close to the edge with her friend. Square, black rimmed glasses framing her eyes and laughing at whatever that friend of hers was saying. The black of her bikini matched her raven hair, contrasting perfectly with the pale of her milky white skin, and I was almost positive I could make out some sort of large tattoo on her thigh, through the sheer material she had wrapped around her waist.

I wondered what it was. I wondered what it looked like up close. I wondered if I'd ever have the confidence to pull off a tattoo like that.

Not that I don't have confidence. I do. I know that my blonde hair and slender figure make me desirable. Ever since high school I've had men chasing me. I know I look good. Adorable, even. That's what I've been told. It's a timid confidence, however - a shy kind.

But this girl… she _oozes_ confidence. Every fibre of her screams it.

It's in the way she walks, tall and with purpose. It's in the way she runs her hand through her hair and the way she wears that shockingly red lipstick so fucking well. The way she puts a possessive arm over her friend's shoulder…

 _Shit. That must be her girlfriend._

My gut clenched and I couldn't explain why. It was a feeling I recognised but didn't expect to feel right now. I was jealous. Jealous of a woman I didn't know being close to another girl I didn't know. It was completely preposterous, and yet the jealousy was very, very real.

Only when her path along the edge of the clear blue swimming pool took her almost directly opposite me, did she glance in my direction. My stomach flipped as our eyes locked. A corner of her mouth curled into the smallest of smiles and I felt heat rush to my cheeks. It burned. Not just my face but that look she gave me. It forced me to look away. I couldn't hold it, but I could still feel that burn still on me. Lying there in my tiny bikini, I suddenly felt exposed. Vulnerable.

When I looked back she was almost at the other end of the pool. Arm no longer around her partner but her partner's now hanging loosely at her waist.

 _Lucky bitch._

If I'd said that out loud my best friend, Polly, soaking up the Mexican sun in the lounger next to me, would be as surprised to hear it as I was at thinking it.

My gaze flutters up to her long wavy hair and the way it sways against her pale back as she walks. I didn't realise I was staring until she flipped her head around and her eyes were on mine again. A wide smile spread over her face. Like she enjoyed that she'd caught me staring at her. Again.

 _Fuck!_

Once more that heat rose to my cheeks and I quickly averted my eyes. Embarrassed.

And then she was gone. Through the crowd of sunbathers, past the pool bar and through the doors to the hotel.

Disappointment eased through me. Slowly. Unsure if it should even be there at all. Why _should_ I be disappointed? What was I expecting to happen? What did I _want_ to happen?

Fuck if I know. All I know is that girl sparked something in me - something deep, something I wasn't sure existed - and I don't think I'll ever see her again.

"Piper!"

The bark with which my best friend said my name snapped my attention to her.

"What the fuck? I said your name like three times."

I shrugged and lay back against the cushion of the sun lounger, sliding the sunglasses from the top of my head on to my face. "I was daydreaming."

"Whatever. I'm going to the bar, what do you want?"

"The bar? It's not even noon!"

"We're on vacation, Pipes. All day drinking is expected. In fact, it's recommended."

I couldn't help but laugh, "Oh yeah? By who?"

"By me! 'When in Rome' and all that. We're in fucking Cancun! If we aren't getting drunk then what's the fucking point in being here!"

She had a point.

"I'll have a margarita."

Days passed, and I could say that the mysterious girl I'd seen at the pool never crossed my mind again, but I'd be lying. I'd love to say that I didn't put a little more thought into what I wore to the pool and apply just a little more make-up on the slight, minuscule chance that she might cross my path again, or that I didn't look out for her on every trip to the bar, or every visit to the beach or every walk in the city - but I can't.

Which is stupid because, well, frankly, I'm not a lesbian. It doesn't make sense to me that I'd want to look hot just in case I saw her, because it's not like I'd ever want to.. you know, _be_ with her.

I like guys. I've _always_ liked guys. Since my N'Sync loving days, where shirtless posters of Justin Timberlake hung proudly on my bedroom wall, to now, where I have a boyfriend who I'm not only attracted to - I love.

Well at least I think I do… Maybe.

It's always been that way. Not once have I ever imagined being with a girl. It's just not my thing…

So why does this woman keep forcing her way into my head? Why can't I stop looking out for her, wondering what her name is and where it is she comes from? Why do I think so much about a girl I've never even met? Even Polly has noticed I've been distracted, and no matter how hard I try to tell her it's because I'm missing my boyfriend back home, she knows me too well to believe it.

It's as I'm walking on the beach one night by myself, right at the shore so the tide rises just enough to wash over my feet, with my heels dangling from one hand and an almost empty bottle of white wine in the other, thinking of her, thinking about how the sight of her in that black bikini made me feel, that I see her.

And this time she's alone, too. Legs crossed in the sand and eyes focused on a book in her lap. My heart stills as I'm about to pass her, unsure if I wanted her to look up and notice me or to quietly turn back before she does, and then, just like that, she becomes aware of someone around her and looks up.

A note of recognition sparks in her eyes and a smirk crawls over her lips as she closes her book and slides her glasses back on her head.

"Well, hey, you ."


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh- um- hi."

It was pathetic, but it was the best I could do. Seeing her here had been so unexpected, and for her to actually talk to me was even more so.

"Rough night?"

Rough night? Did I really look that bad?

Oh God, why did I have to see her here, why couldn't she have suddenly bumped into me at the hotel again or while I was out exploring the city. At one of the times when I was prepared to unexpectedly come across her. Not now, not at night after I'd spent most of the evening at a bar looking after my crazy drunk friend. There's at least a sixty percent chance there's some of her vomit on my dress somewhere right now. That's not a good look.

"What? No. Why would you say that?"

"You're walking alone on the beach with a bottle of wine in your hand. Not exactly the poster girl for happiness right now."

The way she said it wasn't harsh. It was like she was playing with me. Enjoying it.

I glanced at the bottle of wine in my hand. She's probably right, I must look like some depressed alcoholic.

"Oh. Yeah. Right." I shrugged, "My friend- she got really drunk so I put her to bed and then decided to go for a walk. I wanted to look at the stars. You never really see them in New York."

"Taking drunk girls to bed, huh?" Her eyebrow lifts and my stomach plummets, "Who'd have thought it. You really don't look like the type."

My face burned red hot and she laughed because of it.

"You don't know what type I am." I said, but it came out more flirty than I'd meant it to. The alcohol in my system probably had something to do with that.

"No… I don't." She purred, with that almost husky voice. Like the kind you might get if you'd just woken up, but silkier. With more depth.

"So, why are you here?" I asked, desperate to move the conversation along, standing awkwardly with my bottle of wine still dangling from my hand, willing my face to cool down. If I could run into the ocean without it seeming batshit crazy, I would. "Sitting alone on the beach doesn't exactly scream happiness either."

"Yeah I guess it doesn't…" her tone had changed, that voice of hers less playful and suddenly I felt bad, because what if she really _was_ upset right now? "Same reason as you, I guess. To appreciate beauty." She motions up to the stars with her head, "or some corny shit like that. Except I brought a book with me rather than a bottle of wine, and sadly my night didn't involve putting a girl to bed… but I guess there's still time for that." She winks at me and chuckles, probably at how flush I became. Her laugh deep and throaty.

"You can sit down, you know? I won't bite… not unless you ask me to."

She laughs again and I start to think that she's getting off on making me as flustered as possible. Amused at making me uncomfortable.

But not so uncomfortable that I walk away.

I do as she asks and sit by her side, holding down my long flower printed dress so that the warm sea breeze doesn't blow it up. Something tells me she'd have a ball making fun of me for that if it happened. I needn't give her any more ammunition.

And there we were. Just the two of us, sitting in front of the vast dark blue ocean, listening as the waves crashed and receded, and crashed and receded. In the distance behind us people walked the boardwalk, their steps and their laughter and the buzz of music from the restaurants and bars only faintly reaching us. They could have been miles away. It felt, right there, with only water in front of us and the gritty sand between our toes, like we were the only people to exist. Like we were confined to a small space rather than out in the open and exposed.

"You want some?" I asked, gesturing my wine to her.

"No, thanks," She chuckled, "So, what are you doing here in Cancun? I mean besides drinking alone and checking out girls by the pool."

The wine I'd just taken a drink of almost ended up all over my dress. I had to try so hard not to spray it everywhere in surprise. God I must look so stupid, at a time when I really wanted to covey the opposite. "What?"

There was that throaty laugh again, enjoying my discomfort, "I saw you staring at me the other day."

"I wasn't staring at you. And I _definitely_ wasn't checking you out."

"Alright…" She raised her palms, "if you say so."

"I _do_ say so." My heart was racing. Annoyed and embarrassed that she was able to play with my emotions so easily, but unable to deny that rush that she's giving me. "Who _are_ you, anyway?"

"Who _am_ I?"

"What's your name?"

"Alex."

"Okay, Alex. I'm Piper."

" _Definitely_ weren't checking me out, Piper?"

"Definitely."

She didn't believe me, I could tell. Hell, _I_ didn't even believe me.

"Mm. That's a shame."

My heart skipped a beat at the way her voice changed. Lower, softer and sexier. All sorts of intentions hidden in it.

"It is?"

"It is."

The air around us became thick. Intense. Charged.

It was too much for me to take. Her fiery glare too piercing. I stood up, clumsily, my face red hot and body pulsing. This wasn't right. I had to get away from this situation before…

"I should go."

"Why?"

"My friend- she- I should check on her. Make sure she hasn't- you know- vomited in her mouth or something."

Alex screwed up her face, "Nice." She stood up, grabbing her book and black leather jacket from beside her and fixing her glasses back on her face. "I'll walk with you."

"You don't have to." I said, but secretly I was pleased. I didn't want this to be over already, despite what I tried to tell myself. Who knows when I might see her again after tonight.

"I know," She replied, wiping the sand from the back of her jeans before fixing those eyes of hers on me again, "But I'm not ready to say goodbye to you, yet, Piper."

It gave me chills when she said my name. I couldn't and I didn't want to argue it. I think she knew that. She was giving me that all knowing smirk again.

"So, why are you here, Alex?" Forming her name with my mouth gave me the same feeling hearing mine from her lips did. It was a beautiful sound. "Vacation?" I asked as we walked up the steps from the beach to the boardwalk.

"Let's call it… a working vacation."

"Oh. What do you do?"

She grinned at me, and I could tell she was going to give me some bullshit answer.

"I work for an international drug cartel."

Although I'd expected her to mess with me I hadn't expected that answer and the dead pan way she had given it. I searched her eyes for the truth. Was she really a criminal or had she been messing with me like I thought she would. I couldn't tell. Who would admit something like that so casually? And just as I searched her eyes she laughed, and I laughed too. Relieved that this girl who intrigued me so much wasn't a drug dealer.

But then, would that really make any difference to how I feel about her anyway?

"Wanna get a drink?" She asked after we'd walked a little, when we came upon a lively bar with music echoing out and a crowd hanging outside, smoking and laughing and falling over themselves.

"I can't. I already told you, I have to go check on my friend."

At this point I was rejecting her offer only to see how she'd react to it. Of course I wanted to go for a drink with her. Alex had me on her hook and I'd probably be up for whatever she had to offer me. The worst thing is that she knew it. Alex was in control and I hated it.

But I loved it too.

I don't know what's gotten into me. Tired of playing the good girl, maybe. Tired of always trying to do what's right in order to fit in. Tired of trying to please my mom by living as normal a life as possible. Normal is boring. I'm bored. And Alex… Alex is exciting. I need excitement.

"You put her to bed. I'm sure she's fine. I know I would be if you put _me_ to bed."

That sultry voice was back and she winked at me. All heat in my body rushed to my face. I could feel the burn in my ears.

She laughed at my reaction then said, "Come on, Piper. Just one."

"Fine." I said, faking reluctance, my voice low, eyes flicking down to her lips. Those perfect, full, dark red lips. "But just one."

With that, Alex lead me into the bar, I dropped my almost empty bottle of wine in the trash before we walked inside where I was pleased to see a live band playing rather than a DJ. It gave the place a far more chilled out vibe than I'd thought from the outside. We headed straight to the bar and Alex ordered the margarita I requested and a beer for herself before leading me through the crowd to find a table. My hand reached out to her arm as she walked ahead of me, and I told myself it was so I didn't lose her in the crowd but really I'd been dying to touch her, to see what her pale skin felt like. I didn't want to let go. She was so soft.

"Are you here alone, Alex?" I asked once we'd sat down in one of the few tables available, still littered with half drunk bottles of beer and a little damp from spillages. Away from the larger crowd but close enough that we could just about see the band playing.

"Obviously not," she replied, a twinkle in her eye, "I'm here with you, aren't I?"

"Not _here_ ," I said, smiling, turning the straw from my margarita in my fingers, "I mean… here. In Cancun. Working, or vacationing or whatever it is you're doing."

"Sort of, yeah."

"Sort of?"

Alex nods, obviously with no intention of divulging further. It was frustrating. I wanted some power, I wanted to bring her to my level but she refused to come down. Refused to let me peek behind that mysterious curtain even for a second. "What about the girl you were at the pool with?"

I thought it might throw her off guard. It didn't. She gave me a closed lipped smile, tilted her head and raised one of those perfectly arched brows at me.

 _Shit._

"You know, for someone who _definitely_ wasn't checking me out, you sure seem to remember a lot about that day."

"I'm perceptive."

" _Perceptive_. Right." She gave me that look that told me she knew I was full of shit. It was starting to grow on me. It was kind of attractive. It suited her. "She was… an associate."

"An associate?"

"Yeah… it's… complicated."

"Complicated?" I ask with a laugh. The alcohol must finally be kicking in, or maybe its that it's no longer just the two of us, but I'm starting to feel more comfortable. It feels less intense. "What was she, your drug mule?"

Alex sips her drink, her lip curling, flicking her brow up again. Once again I'm not sure if she's fucking with me or not. Maybe she really is some criminal drug overlord. There hasn't exactly been anything to tell me any different.

I should be freaked out by the possibility. But Alex… she seems so… harmless. Teasing, sarcastic, sexual and blunt, but harmless.

"She's not important right now. Let's not talk about her. I'm much more interested in getting to know _you_."

"Oh yeah?" I say, moving an inch closer. My knee bumps under the table with hers and I let it stay there, enjoying the contact. With my straw I stir my drink and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, all the while keeping my eyes on hers, and on her lips, and momentarily on her slender neck. "What do you want to know?"

Her hot gaze still on me, Alex takes a breath and lets it out before saying, "So many things…" Her eyes are so green. I notice it for the first time as I take a long sip of my drink, trying to cool myself down. Before, on the beach, with only the moonlight and streetlights from the boardwalk to illuminate us, those eyes looked darker. Brown or hazel maybe, but no, they were a shining green.

This is so out of my comfort zone. All of it. I've never been an overtly sexual person. Flirting hadn't ever been something I was particularly good at - I always felt a bit silly, but it didn't feel silly right now. Right now I wanted to get her as hot under the collar as she was making me, and I think it was working. A shadow of lust had come over those great green eyes. She wanted me, and yeah, I'll admit, I wanted her, too. So bad.

"Have you ever been with a woman, Piper?"

Had she asked me that half an hour ago I would have been shocked, but not this time. I barely even blush. Her brashness, just like the way she teases me, has already become an expected part of her language. Something I enjoy.

"I have a boyfriend," I said. Not because I wanted her to back off, I already know that she won't care and will continue to pursue me the way she has been. I tell her because I want her reaction. I want her to know that this isn't me, that back home everything is different. That this girl she's seeing right now is someone she has brought out.

"That wasn't what I asked you."

My teeth tug on my inner lip. "No. I haven't."

"Never? Not even a kiss?"

I shake my head.

"Hmm." Her long fingers don't have to reach far to touch with mine, we're already so close. Lightly she runs her hand up my finger and strokes the skin near my wrist. So delicately. Grazing her nails against me, sending a shiver down my spine. "I think we should fix that."

"You do?"

She nods. "And I think you want that, too."

"That's awfully confident talk considering I just told you I have a boyfriend and that I'm not into girls."

"You never said that."

"Well I'm not." I said, shrugging one shoulder and taking another sip of my drink. "I'm straight."

"See," Alex leans in close, so close that I can smell the perfume on her neck.

Without realising what I was doing my gaze shifted to the silver necklace dangling at her chest, but the half moon shaped pendant only took my attention for a split second as it moved down to her cleavage, on show through her dark grey v-necked t-shirt. Enough to make me look but not enough that nothing was left to the imagination, and boy was my imagination was running wild. My heart beating out my chest. My mouth impossibly dry.

"I'm pretty perceptive, too," She continued, her voice low and silky smooth, "and I don't think that's true. I think you know it, Piper. The way you've been flirting with me, the way your knee has been pressed up against mine this entire time; the way your eyes keep finding themselves focused on different parts of my body; on my lips… my neck… my tits… and the way you blush whenever I say anything even remotely sexual to you, tells me that you're more than a little curious to see what a night with me would be like. And let me tell you, kid, somewhere after your third or fourth orgasm you'll realise it was the best decision you've ever made."

Alex moved in closer, pushing my hair back so that she could whisper to me, her lips ever so slightly grazing my ear, "So make it."


	3. Chapter 3

When I was younger I caught my dad having an affair. I watched as he kissed a woman that wasn't my mother and despite my young age, I knew exactly what it meant. I knew he wasn't supposed to be doing that. I knew it was wrong.

My mother, on the other hand, didn't care.

Okay, that's probably not true. I'm sure she did care, I'm sure it killed her when I told her what I'd seen, when she knew that I knew my dad could do something like that, but rather than act like many women would and throw him out, she swept it under the rug. For the good of the family, for the good of their reputation, to keep up the pretence that our home was a perfect one when it was so fucking far from it.

Would it have been any better if Mom had thrown him out? I don't know. We would have been a broken family and I guess that would bring up its own issues, but I'd much rather have grown up in a truthful home than a deceitful one, because it's that that made me the way I am. It's that voice in my head that she put there, always telling me to do the right thing, always do what will present the best version of yourself to the world, that forced me to suppress everything I really wanted.

Find a good man, have some beautiful children and live in a lovely big house in the middle of suburbia - thats the image my mother taught me to have.

The White-American dream. WASP central.

Fuck that.

What would she say if she saw me now? Pressed firmly against the door of Alex's apartment, my hands in her long, silky dark hair, one leg clinging desperately to her waist while my lips were being hungrily ravaged by hers, moaning her name as she sucked at my neck. She'd be appalled.

 _"_ _This is not how we behave, Piper!"_ She'd say. Would much prefer I have monotonous sex with a man where I have to get myself off afterwards than let another woman make me feel fucking amazing. Like Alex does.

Last night happened so fast. The last thing I remember we were laughing and flirting and teasing and drinking, and then we were dancing, and we were getting closer. Her arm wrapped around my waist as her hips swung against mine in time with the music, she pulled me into her, moved down my body and back up again and gave me this look, this intense stare filled with heat and I looked at her lips that were dangerously close to mine and I put my hands around her neck. My eyes closed, I breathed her in - a musky mix of her perfume, alcohol and sweat from all the bodies on the dance floor. It was strangely erotic.

Then - just like that - her soft, full lips touched mine. Gently at first. Tentatively. As if she was asking permission to do it but at the same time not giving me the chance to say no. Not that I'd say no anyway.

Alex is a good kiser.

No, Alex is a fucking magnificent kisser. She took her time, mixing soft kisses with hard, hungry ones and I was weak. I really felt like at any second my knees would give out and if Alex hadn't been holding on to me I suppose I might have.

When we broke I was breathless, my body pulsing with desire and she looked positively delighted with the effect she'd had on me. She'd been proven right, after all. I was into girls. One girl in particular.

It made me see, with a crash of understanding, that this was something I'd always been interested in. I might have claimed before that men had been my only sexual interest, but I failed to mention - or just buried somewhere - that I've had moments when I've pictured this. I've wondered what it would be like to be with a woman and the thought hasn't ever been one I've rejected.

The courage to let that side of me show, however, was something I didn't possess. So, true to the Chapman way I pushed it down, because good Chapman girls don't like other girls. That'd be too much of a scandal.

Hiding a part of yourself like that is…. it's like always being out in the rain. It's fine at first but eventually you get tired of holding the umbrella - of aways carrying something, but you feel like if you don't you'll be left out in the cold. Unprotected and soaking wet.

This, right now, was that moment when the sun shines out through the dark thundery clouds. It was that rainbow that signals good things are coming. It was dropping that umbrella and taking off your wet clothes. It was smelling that sweet petrichor in the air and getting warm under the sun. It was finally feeling like yourself again. No longer cold, no longer unprotected. Everything was bright and happy and how it should be.

"Wanna get out of here?" Alex had asked me, her lips at my ear. Breath tickling my neck.

How could I say no to that? I was under her spell and she knew it.

" _God_ yes."

The mask had fallen. I didn't have the energy or a reason anymore to pretend that Alex wasn't everything I wanted right now. That her kiss hadn't turned me on beyond belief, that I didn't want to know what those lips would feel like when they touched every inch of my body.

Next thing I knew I was here, up against her door, gasping and moaning and relishing every second of having her touch me.

I said Alex's name so many times that night, with various inflections and in various states of desire, but every single time I said it it felt better on my lips. Like it belonged there.

When I left her apartment hours later I had the biggest smile on my face. Despite every fibre of my being telling me to stay, I snuck out of her room in the dead of the night while she slept peacefully beside me. Nothing would have made me happier than to lie there in that gorgeous woman's arms all night, and wake up to that beautiful face first thing in the morning, but I had to get back to Polly. She hadn't noticed I was gone yet, that much I knew since she hadn't called or texted. I didn't want her to wake up and notice I was gone. I couldn't worry her like that. That wouldn't be fair.

So, after hunting around her room for some paper and a pen - as quietly as I could so as to not wake her, (if she caught me leaving I was sure she'd ask me to stay longer and I wouldn't have the willpower to say no) I left a note on Alex's nightstand, telling her what an amazing night I'd had and thanking her for it. Leaving my number at the bottom with a small heart next to it and the instruction to call me.

I practically skipped the whole way back to my hotel room, and when I got there I was pleased to see Polly still passed out in her bed. It was then that I thought about whether I should tell her about what had happened tonight or not. Keeping it from her would feel wrong considering we tell each other almost everything, but this… this is huge. I don't know how she'd react. Polly isn't exactly an angel herself, she's cheated on her fair share of boyfriends and when she has she told me about it almost immediately. She never cheated with a woman though, and that in itself is pretty big news.

When I woke the next morning, Polly was already up. Banging around her room presumably trying to decide what to wear for the day.

"Polly!" I called out, stretching my arms up above my head to release all the tension that'd built up overnight.

The decision was made in that second. This _was_ huge news, and I didn't want to keep it to myself. Besides, if I knew my best friend like I thought I did she wouldn't judge.

I could hear the pit-pat of Polly's feet as she made her way to the door that adjoined our rooms. When she appeared I had to a stifle a laugh at the dark mascara smudges under her eyes and bushy bed head she had going on. She looked just as rough as I'd expected her to.

"Do you really need to shout like that first thing in the morning, Pipes? My head is a bit fucking fragile right now. Please keep all voice levels down."

I laughed and patted the bed, scooting over to give her enough space to sit. "Come here for a second, I have something to tell you."

Polly looked dubious. Probably a little puzzled by the huge smile on my face. After all, as far as she was aware I'd gone to bed after bringing her back to the room last night. "O-kay."

"Okay, so, last night, you know, once I'd taken you back here and you'd passed out on the bed,"

I begun, once Polly was settled beside me in bed.

"Yeah…" she said with a grimace and a gently touch to her forehead, "I really need to stop thinking I can handle Tequila."

"You really do. Or at least stop doing two shots at a time, three of four times a night."

"Right, yeah, that too."

"Anyway, once I'd left you home I decided to go for a walk down on the beach with the half bottle of wine we had left and… well…"

I told Polly everything. I told her how I'd come across Alex and how I'd recognised her from the hotel pool. I told her how there was something between us, something electric and how, on what was supposed to be my walk home, she convinced me to go for a drink with her.

As best as I could, I explained to her how she'd made me feel, how she'd made me laugh and made me blush. How she'd set my pulse racing harder than anyone else ever had. I told her how we danced, and how she whispered so gently into my ear that she wanted to bring me up to her room. I told her how badly I wanted to do just that. I gushed about how earth shattering the sex was, about how she'd been right about me not regretting a single part of it. About how she'd brought me to climax countless times over and made me feel things I man has ever made me feel.

"What. The. Fuck! That's wild, Pipes!" Polly said when I finally finished saying all I had to say. "I can't believe you had sex with a girl! Well, I can, I kinda always thought you had this freaky side but I can't believe it happened last night!"

"I know! It's crazy! And I can't stop thinking about it, Polly. I can't stop thinking about her. She was so… _ugh_ , just incredible. I really wanna see her again."

"Do you think you will?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I left my number on her nightstand so… maybe."

"So wait- does this mean you're a lesbian now?"

Rolling my eyes, I smirked at the amused, mocking way she said it and replied, "no I'm not a lesbian now. That's not how it works! I'm… well I don't know what I am, actually."

Polly gasped then, as if she'd just remembered something important. And she had. "What about Larry? Are you gonna tell him?"

"I don't know." I replied, pained by the thought of it. In all honesty he'd hardly came into my head at all and even when he did it never put me off what I was doing.

"Do you still love him?"

"Yeah…" It wasn't convincing, and the look on Polly's face told me so. "I don't know. I care about him but it's just so… boring. I mean… he's nice and he treats me good and the sex is fine but it's all just so predictable, y'know? I feel like at this point in my life I should be having sex that is a lot better than fine and be with someone who is more than just nice."

"Yeah, I guess. But you know what momma Chapman would say; ' _nice is also safe, and safe is good_ '."

I scoffed, "Safe is boring. I need excitement!"

"And excitement is random one night stands with lesbians?"

"In this case - yeah." Polly and I laughed together again, but as I chuckled the image of Larry came to me and despite myself I felt bad. I felt bad because I do care about him. Because he is a nice guy and because he doesn't deserve to be cheated on like this. "Shit." I said with a sigh. "What do you think I should do?"

"I don't know." Polly shrugged. "I mean, I guess if this was just a one night thing then there's really no point in telling him but if it's something you want to pursue…"

"That's not really up to me though is it? It's Alex that has my number. It's up to her to call me."

"And if she does?"

"If she does…" Thinking of her, I smiled. "She's a hard woman to say no to."


	4. Chapter 4

**Alex**

There's something about Piper. Something… compelling. I was drawn to her the way a bee is to nectar. Instinctually.

It surprised me, because Piper is far from my usual type. Sure, she's hot, that much is obvious, but girls destined for the life of a yuppie had never drawn me in before. Too much drama - too high maintenance, but with her it was different. With Piper I could see the part of her that wanted to break free from all of that. I could tell that she craved something more. Something more fun, something more exciting, something more dangerous. Something to piss off her parents and give a big fuck you to all the people expecting her to be and live a certain way.

That might be pretty presumptuous of me considering we barely know each other, but Piper isn't so hard to read, really, and I've always been good at reading people.

It's all about attention to detail. Why else would a girl, currently in a relationship with a man, be open to sleeping with a woman? Why didn't she walk right past me at the beach and head back to her friend? Why was she walking the beach alone at night in the first place? Because she wasn't happy, because she craved more than the life she was living. The simplest answer is usually the correct one.

Piper wants someone to tell her how sexy she is, she wants someone to pursue her the way I did, to pay attention to her and make her flush and hot and tremble with desire. I doubt she's ever felt as good as I made her feel. That's not me being overly confident either, that's just me knowing - or sensing, that she's never really experienced that sexual side of herself.

Piper screams innocence. She's a good girl. A good girl who knew it was wrong to fuck a girl she'd just met when she has a shmuck of a boyfriend back home, but couldn't resist doing it anyway, and I have to admit, that is pretty hot.

It wasn't supposed to go as far as it did, but I couldn't resist the challenge, and even though I'd done most of the work, Piper turned out to be much better in bed than I'd expected her to. She was so… open to it all. So expressive and responsive. The way she moaned at every kiss and gasped in pleasure at every intimate touch. It was enthralling. I couldn't get enough of her.

Piper was easy to seduce in the end, but she's going to be hard to forget, and I have to forget her. There's not really any other option. While I can see that Piper craves danger and excitement in her life, I doubt she'd want the kind of danger and excitement that I'd bring. Enough for one magical night in a foreign country, yes, but it's not exactly easy being with a woman who makes a living importing heroin.

Most of the girls on my arm are ones that are working for me, ones that I've charmed into this world and I've learned from experience that this part of the job is difficult for girlfriends to handle. The fact that I'm always travelling is hard for them, too. Trust becomes a huge issue. They don't trust me and, frankly, I don't trust them either. Someone always gets hurt in the end. I wasn't going to let that be me. Not again.

Doing this job is easier when you're single, it's as simple as that. It's easier for me to devote my energy to the girls that are going to be doing the dirty work of taking the drugs on a flight to Sweden or France or Italy or wherever it may be. There's no one waiting for me back home to grill me about my trip, no one to fight with and no one to convince that I've been faithful even though I probably haven't.

But, that's the thing, isn't it? There's no one waiting for me back home.

It gets lonely sometimes. I've gotten used to using any one of the plethora of girls in my phone for nights when I need company. Girls I can say goodbye to at the end of the night without feeling bad about it. I've gotten used to being by myself because it suits my lifestyle better, and because I've tried the girlfriend thing before and I'm not good at it. I'm not good with rules and conditions and not being able to do whatever I feel like doing, but I would quite like having that one person who I can talk to about anything, who I can confide in and laugh with and spend all day in bed with.

I suppose that's why I was disappointed, when I woke up that morning without Piper's body beside me. That'd never happened before. I've had plenty of one night stands and while I wasn't the type to throw them out right after we'd finished having sex, having them there the next morning wasn't usually something I wanted, either. It was always a little awkward.

Why was Piper different then? The simplest answer would have to be that she _was_ different. I kind of wanted to see what she'd be like first thing in the morning, with her head on the pillow beside mine. I think she'd look quite cute with her sandy blonde hair all messy and those blue eyes of hers all bleary and tired.

Before I'd even opened my eyes that morning I'd thought of her, of the night before and of how I was going to tease her about it. Make fun of the noises she'd made or how willing she was so come up to my room. Make her cheeks that adorable shade of pink.

It wouldn't have been awkward.

It was for the best, though, that she wasn't there. I realised that when I came to my senses, when I'd fully woken up. When I'd seen the adorable as fuck note she'd left on my nightstand.

Piper isn't one of those girls whose number you keep in your phone for a booty call. Piper isn't the kind of girl you fuck and never see again, she's too sweet for that, too innocent and somehow enthralling.

Piper is a girl you to put time in with. Piper is a girl you'd _want_ to put time in with. Time I can't give her, despite how much I'd like to. She couldn't handle what my life really is. I know she wants to break out of that WASP-y shell of hers, but this is too much. Let her find that with someone else. Let her live that boring life set up for her, because it'll hurt her less in the long run.

It's better if I just forget about her.

The sweet note she'd left was discarded. Not far though, I couldn't bring myself to throw it in the trash. Which pissed me off in itself because I couldn't understand why this woman had such a hold on me already. I put it in my purse. I couldn't throw my only link to her away. Not yet.

Two days later I was on a flight out of there. Doing my best to keep that blonde beauty out of my head, and mostly succeeding.

As soon as my plane landed roughly on the tarmac, shaking me out of the half-sleep I'd been in, my phone started to beep. Friends asking to meet up, hook ups wanting to hook up.

Ignoring the others, I texted my friends back, arranging to meet in the usual bar later on that evening. I couldn't wait to see them, to just relax and de-stress with good company and plenty of alcohol. They always find it amusingly ironic, and I suppose it is, that after visiting these gorgeous places around the world, places people usually go to get away from everyday life, I need time out back home to recover from them. They forget that I don't go to these places to chill out. I don't go to hang out by the pool, drinking cocktails and reading books. I go to work. Its always work. I'm always on edge, always watching my back and watching others'. When I get home, get into my own apartment and out drinking with friends, _that's_ when I can relax.

Piper was a blip from the norm. On those trips I don't usually hook up with anyone. Not unless I'm trying to seduce them to talk them into carrying heroin.

Everything on those trips is work. Rarely recreational, never without a reason. What happened with Piper wasn't supposed to happen. It's dangerous to get too close to someone - especially a stranger - while moving a shipment. They could be anyone.

Carelessness gets people caught - that's what the boss says, and he's right. I've seen it happen. I was too good at my job to be that person.

"Vause!"

I heard my surname being called almost as soon as I walked in, and saw a group of my friends standing at a table close to the bar, one of them waving their hand out to me. As if I would miss her with that big dirty blonde bushy mane of hers. I waved back and motioned to the bar, letting them know I was going to grab a drink first but she shook her head and held up two bottles of beer, "we've been saving them up for you!"

I"Welcome back," said Nicky, handing me the beer with a grin, "miss us?"

"I was in Cancun. Of course I didn't fucking miss you guys." That was a lie, but they didn't need to know that. I swallowed a sip of beer, relishing at how smoothly it went down.

"Were you though? Were you in Cancun? Because your pale as shit skin tells a different story. I seriously don't understand how someone can fly all around the fucking world and still come back looking like they've never spent a day outside."

"I'm not going to these places to get a fucking tan, Nicky." I joked, "It's business."

"Yeah I know but jeez, would it kill you to sit out in the sun for a while? Get some colour on that vampire complexion of yours."

We laughed and we drank and soon enough I forgot all about Piper and the hand scribbled note sitting in my purse.

I forgot about her for a while, actually. Our night together and the things I thought I might one day feel for her got pushed so far back in my memory I could pretend they never happened.

That was until I was rummaging through my purse a couple of weeks later. I couldn't find my favourite eyeliner and I tipped the contents of my purse onto the coffee table in frustration.

"I have so much _shit_ in this purse!" I complained, but Nicky, who'd been sitting on the sofa laughing at my show of frustration had spotted something in the contents of my bag that caught her attention and leaned over to pick it up.

"Who's this from?" She asked me, smirking.

As soon as I saw what she had in her hand, it sent a flood of images through my mind. Piper at the pool. On the beach. On the dancefloor. In my bed. On top of me.

"What?"

Nicky flashed the note at me and read bits of it aloud. "' _Last night was magical, Alex. Really hope to see you again soon. Call me'._ Magical, ay?" Nicky said in that thick New York accent of hers, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. "You got some Harry Potter pussy there, Vause?"

I laughed and shook my head at the flirty little grin she gave me. This was always how it was with her, Nicky was like the fuckboy of lesbians. Sex and swearing took up about half of her vocabulary and she wasn't shy in coming on to me, or anyone for that matter. It wasn't like she was particularly interested in me like that (although I'm sure she is - she's interested in everyone), she talked like this to almost all of our friends. That's just who she was. It was part of why I liked her. You knew where you stood with Nicky. All her cards were on the table - always.

"Shut the fuck up, Nicky."

"What? I'm just curious! Who is she?"

"No one." I said adamantly. Trying to show her I didn't care, because I didn't.

"She must be someone or you wouldn't have her little love note in your purse. Come on, tell me!"

"She's just someone I met in Cancun, okay? We fucked. I liked it, she liked it - _obviously,_ and that was it."

"Was she hot?"

"Of course she was." I said as I started looking through the other stuff that'd come out of my purse, still searching for my eyeliner.

"You gonna call her?"

"Probably not."

"Why?"

"Why are you asking me so many questions about this?"

"Why are you acting so fucking weird about it?"

"I'm not being weird!"

"There's a hot girl's number in your purse and you're not gonna call it? That's fucking weird, Vause. Call her. Give her that Harry Potter pussy." Nicky laughed. I threw a pen at her.

"Look, she's a nice girl, okay? My life is too fucked up for a nice girl, and she already has a boyfriend-"

"Oh fuck she's a straight girl?" Nicky winced as if she was in pain. "Those girls fuck you up the most."

"Exactly." I sighed, hands on my hips as I looked down at the mess id created on my coffee table. My eyeliner wasn't even there. "I'm not about to waste my time with someone who sees me as some sort of post-college adventure. I'm past that shit."

Nicky nodded, knowing all too well the trouble those types of girls cause with your heart.

"But, hey, she might be different. Maybe she's waiting on you to save her from a life with a boring boyfriend and shitty sex." Nicky laughed, stood up from the sofa and handed me the piece of paper, "Look, you don't have to make her your fucking girlfriend or anything, but I know if I had a hot girl's number in my purse, I'd be calling it." She winked at me, headed towards the kitchen, and called over her shoulder, "Go show her what life is like on the other end of the Kinsey scale."

I let out a short laugh at that, then glanced my eyes across the writing I hadn't looked at in over two weeks. I looked at her slanted, girly handwriting and the little heart she'd put beside her phone number. I thought about how much fun we'd had that night, and not just the sex, the whole night had been fun. She was easy to talk to, easy to laugh with. I liked her, and I'd like to see her again, because just as she wasn't happy in the life she was living, I wasn't particularly happy in mine either. I liked my job despite it's slightly immoral nature and I made plenty of money, I'm healthy and hot and confident in who I am. But I'm not happy.

What harm could it do to call her?

"I'll think about it."


	5. Chapter 5

"Just face it, Pipes, she's not going to call. If she was she would've done it by now. Let it go."

It was sound advice, I'll give Polly that, and yeah, it was probably true. That didn't stop me from continuing to check my phone every chance I got though, wondering - hoping, there'd finally be a message or a call from the mysterious Alex I'd met on vacation, but it'd been almost two weeks now, and the chances of that happening were becoming slimmer by the day.

The level of disappointment I felt was greater than I'd expected. I spent so much time thinking over every detail of the night we spent together, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, because there must have been something or she would have called.

Maybe I wasn't badass enough for her. Maybe the way I blushed when she teased me showed I was too naive for a girl like her. I couldn't keep up. Maybe it was my inexperience in the bedroom (though I hadn't heard any complaints that night) or maybe, as Polly tried to tell me, I was just a one night stand.

I couldn't say if it was because she was a woman or because I'd felt such a strong connection with her that I didn't think that true. Women are equally capable of having meaningless sex with people they pick up in bars as men are, and I was probably romanticising any connection I thought we had, but I still can't shake off the feeling in my gut that in this case neither of those things are true. I mean, yeah, I'm sure Alex has picked up girls like me and thrown them to the side afterwards, but it didn't feel like that. It felt like she liked me, it felt like she was as intrigued by me as I was by her, and I just can't understand why, if this is true, she wouldn't call me.

Larry noticed I was distracted too, he kept asking if I was okay, and what was I supposed to say?

 _"_ _No, honey, I'm not okay. This woman I fucked in Cancun hasn't called me and I can't figure out why."_

I doubt that'd go down too well. Instead, I told him I was fine and then wondered if maybe _he_ was the reason my one night lover hadn't called. She knew I had a boyfriend - maybe she didn't want to get in the middle of that kind of complication.

That didn't seem like her. But then again how am I to know what _seems like_ her and what doesn't. I don't know her.

Alex found her way into my thoughts so often she was practically a part of me. I thought about her at night, as I made love to my boyfriend and as I lay there in his arms. I thought of how she felt, of how she sounded. I breathed in my boyfriend's scent and imagined hers instead. I kissed his lips and wished they were hers.

It seems crazy to me that someone has me this infatuated with only one night. One night was all she needed to put me under her spell and now I had no way of getting to her. Her first name was all I knew - not her last name, not what she does for a living or even what state she lived in. Even Facebook couldn't help me out with as little information as that.

That added to the mystique, I guess. Added to the obsession. Not knowing her made me want to even more.

 _Fuck you, Alex._

The longer I waited on her to call the more pissed off I became. Because how dare she put me in this position? How dare she open me up like that - bring this part of me rushing to the forefront when it'd been buried for so long and then drop me like I was nothing. How fucking dare she!

Maybe she is the asshole that Polly has been saying she is. It probably is better for me to just forget about that one night we spent together and continue with my life as normal. Don't think about what life could have been like if Alex actually liked you like you thought she did and called you back, because those kind of what if's are the ones that drive you mad.

My life is fine as it is. Just fine.

It's typical that it would be just as I was starting to accept that our one night in Cancun was all that Alex and I would ever share, that she called. A number that I didn't recognise flashed up on my caller ID as I was having dinner with my boyfriend and I knew, I just _knew_ it was her.

It's funny that, isn't it? How you just know sometimes, without any real evidence to support it.

"Aren't you gonna get that?"

 _I don't know._

The thing is I wanted to answer that phone. I wanted to pick it up as soon as it rang and hear that voice of hers again. That smooth, deep voice. But I don't do that. Because she kept me waiting.

Two weeks it's been, and she waited until now to call, just as I'm starting to accept that what happened was a one time thing and nothing more. And now she calls.

I want to answer. I have to answer.

"Yeah," I said to Larry and whatever it is he said back I don't register it. I'm too focused on that phone. Wondering how long I can leave it before answering. Let her sweat a little…

"Hello?" I said after leaving it to ring just a couple more times. I couldn't wait any longer. Couldn't risk her giving up and not calling back.

"Hey."

Hearing her voice made the breath catch in my throat. I smile, despite myself. I can't remember that I'm supposed to be annoyed with her.

"You took a while to pick up there, Piper. I was starting to think you wouldn't."

She has some balls, I doubt there's many people who'd call up someone after this long and actually try and chastise them for taking too long to answer the call.

"Who is this?" I said back to her, making a face to Larry as if I had no idea who this was. If she was going to fuck with me then I'd fuck with her right back.

She laughed. It sent a chill down my spine. The best kind.

"You know who it is."

I stabbed at a piece of chicken with my fork and placed it in my mouth. Trying to act as normal as possible so not to arouse the suspicion of my boyfriend sitting only a few feet away.

This is probably one of the most dangerous things I've done, I realise. Openly talking to the girl I cheated on my boyfriend with while he casually eats his dinner across from me.

"I do?"

"Of course you do," she sounded like she was enjoying this act as much as I was. "It's Alex."

"Alex…?"

"Yeah, Alex. But maybe you don't recognise my name being said so casually like that. Last time you said it it was more like, _Alex_ ," her voice dropped when she said her name again. Heavier. Breathier. " _Oh_ ," she gasped, and moaned, " _Alex_."

My cheeks were red hot, Larry was looking at me funny. My heart thumped furiously.

"Remember me now?"

I could hear the smile in her voice.

"I-" my voice cracked and I cleared my throat. I don't even know what I was going to say anyway. I took the phone away from my ear, the sound of Alex chuckling on the other side still vaguely audible. "I'll be right back," I said to Larry who looked a bit befuddled, and hurried to leave the room.

"Why are you calling?" I was angrier now. Pissed off because she was acting like nothing had happened and actually trying to fuck with me at the same time.

"You left me your number."

"Yeah - two weeks ago."

"I've been busy."

I scoffed, because I knew that was bullshit. No-one is ever to busy to call someone if they really want to talk to them.

A second or two passed and I heard her sigh. "Listen, I'm sorry - okay? I didn't mean to leave it this long, but I'm calling now and it's better late than never, right?"

"Mmh." I hummed, unconvinced.

"Look, if you want me to be really honest I wasn't sure if I wanted to call you at all. Things with me really are complicated, and you have a boyfriend so I'm guessing this makes things pretty complicated for you, too. I figured it'd be easier to leave it where we left it. One night."

"So why'd you decide to call now?"

"Because… There's something about you, Piper. I had to see you again."

"Who says you're gonna get to see me again?" I asked, smiling to myself. Softened by her admission.

"You're not gonna turn me down. You wouldn't have left me your number if you didn't wanna see me."

Of course I wanted to see her, but leaving her that note back in Mexico had been easier. What we were doing didn't feel real over there. Right now there was this pull, reminding me of the man sitting behind the door I was leaning against. Over here, there was a man who stood to be hurt over what choice I made.

But still, there was only one choice to make.

"Come on," Alex added, a slight, genuine plead to her voice that appealed to me. Told me she wasn't all about messing around. "Let me make it up to you."

The date was set for two days later, though neither of us officially called it a date, we were just meeting for coffee. That's all.

When the day came, nerves consumed me like they hadn't done since I first started dating. Back when I didn't know what it was like.

The coffee shop we'd agreed to meet in wasn't overly busy when I got there, so I knew instantly that she wasn't here yet. I was relieved and disappointed at once. Glad I had the time to sit down, get a drink and get settled before she arrived, but at the same time wished I didn't have to be the one waiting on her. Again.

The latte I was drinking was half finished before Alex walked through the door, wearing black boots, black jeans, a loose white top and a black leather jacket. I was starting to sense a theme. Alex had a thing for black, and why not, she suited it.

The second I spotted her my heart stopped. At least it felt that way. It was weird seeing her again. Weird, but amazing. Fireworks went off inside me. I wanted to jump up and wave at her to get her attention.

I didn't do that. I knew better.

The tinge of nervousness I spotted in her as she looked around for me made getting here before her worth while. It was like peeking behind the curtain, spotting something you knew had to be there but never saw before.

She smiled when she saw me. It made my heart leap and all of a sudden it had gone from nearly beating to beating far too fast. I smiled too.

"Fancy seeing you here." She said as she pulled out the seat in front of me.

"I know, right? _So_ weird."

"Have you been waiting long?"

"No, I just got here."

"Really? That must be someone else's half empty coffee then, right?" She laughed at the embarrassment on my face and then gave her coffee order to the waitress that came over, with the instruction to send another of what I just had, too. "I am pretty late," she said as she slid her leather jacket off, "sorry. I had some work stuff I had to deal with first."

"I get this feeling that you like to keep people waiting."

"I don't do it intentionally. Stuff just seems to always get in the way."

I let her get settled for a minute, fixing her jacket on the back of her seat and placing her phone from her back pocket on to the table. I soaked the sight of her in, her gorgeous long hair, her secretary style glasses that made me feel all sorts of things and the dark shade of red lipstick covering those perfectly plump lips of hers.

"When did you get back from Mexico?" I asked her, taking note that her pale skin hadn't coloured one bit from the trip. She couldn't have been there very long, or her skin was the type that never varied from its natural milky white hue.

"Couple days after we… you know - _met_." She gave me a flirty smirk and flicked an eyebrow up and I tried to contain my smile. I couldn't let her have me around her little finger so soon.

"And you live around here?"

"I do," the waitress came back to our table with our coffee's and we thanked her. Alex stirred hers and then took a sip and I couldn't help but watch as she licked the little bit of froth from the top her her lip. I think she caught me. "I live just a couple of blocks away, actually."

"Kinda crazy how we… _met_ ," I said it in the same way she had and then laughed a little, "in a foreign country when we both live within- what- twenty minutes of each other?"

"I know. What are the chances, huh?"

"You'd think we would have met before now. Living so close."

"New York's a big place," she shrugged, leaning back in her chair, "I travel a lot, and I'm pretty sure we run in completely different circles. I doubt you've ever been in any of the places I usually hang out."

"Probably not."

"See." She said, as if her point had been proven. "If we didn't happen to be in Cancun at the same time we never would have met."

I don't say it but somehow I feel like that's not true. Something would have brought us together, I'm sure of it.

"Do you have anywhere to be today?"

I shook my head.

"You don't have to meet the boyfriend later on or anything?"

"Nope. Why?"

"There's a really cool tattoo place a block away from here. I think I might add to my collection."

"What? Just like that, you're gonna get another tattoo?"

"No time like the present."

"Shouldn't you at least decide what to get first?"

"I'll decide when we get there. You can help me pick. That's a pretty fucking cool first date story if you ask me."

"This is a date?"

"It's not exactly two friends meeting for coffee is it?" She smiled at me and I smiled back. Those feelings were coming back, those rushes that she'd given me that night were returning. "You could get one, too."

"One what? A tattoo?" I raised my eyebrows in surprise, "No, I don't think so."

"No? Why not?"

"Because…" I couldn't think of a good reason. The truth is I've always wanted a tattoo but never had the guts to actually go through with it. I didn't know what to get, and deciding on the spot wasn't something I was overly comfortable with. "I don't know."

Alex smiled at me, "you don't know? Alright, well, we can go and I'll get a tattoo and you can browse. There's one girl that works there and she's really good. You know the big tattoo on my thigh? That's her work. I won't try and talk you into it if you don't want to, but at least have a look. You might be surprised at what you'll like and if something catches your eye - get it. Don't think about it just do it. I don't think you do that enough."

She was probably right, but I was still unsure. "Does it hurt?"

"It can. Depends where you get it. But don't worry I'll hold your hand through it." She winked at me and I grinned back at her.

The way she was looking at me filled me with a sense of bravery I hadn't really had before. "Okay. Lets do it."

We finished up our coffee and headed out. Being in the height of summer, it was uncomfortably hot and I already wished I'd worn shorts instead of jeans. Alex would've enjoyed that.

The tattoo parlour wasn't how I expected it to be. I've never been in one and always imagined them to be dark spaces with heavy metal music playing. Being served by a person with tattoo's and piercings all over and for there to be skulls and crosses and all sorts of gothic things decorating the place.

In reality it was kind of normal. Poster sized front covers of the Rolling Stone magazine were framed on the walls along with classic vinyl LP's by the likes of Pink Floyd and David Bowie, and various pictures of people showing off particularly impressive tattoos. Ones that had been done here, I guessed. The carpet was a shockingly bright red that contrasted perfectly with the black leather sofa that sat across from the reception area - which was also black, with a glass compartment showing off different pieces of jewellery. From necklaces and bracelets to belly button bars and nipple rings.

"Alex!" The girl behind the reception area called as we walked in, and I figured right away that this was the girl Alex had mentioned - the one who'd done her tattoo before. Her shoulder length hair was a pale pink and had been shaved at one side, she had her lip and her nose pierced (and maybe more but that's all I could see) and a multitude of colourful tattoo's all up one arm, and a couple on the other.

I'd expected to feel intimidated the second I walked in, like everyone inside would know I didn't belong, but the pink haired woman greeted me with a smile and the other customers waiting on the sofa for their turn to be inked barely acknowledged me. I was surprisingly comfortable here.

"Piper," I'd ventured off to look at the photographs of tattoo's on the wall when I heard Alex call my name. "Come here, have a look at these."

I walked over and glanced down at the fairly hefty book Alex was flicking through.

"I have to go start my next appointment," said the girl with the pink hair who was still standing behind the large reception area, "but it's a quick one, should only take about half an hour so you guys take some time looking through that and if you want something off book don't be afraid to ask." The girl smiled at me and winked. She was so brazen, so confident. "You excited about your first tattoo?"

"Wha- I- I don't even know if I'm getting one."

"You should. It's a very liberating experience. And I'll be gentle with you, I promise." She winked at me again and off she went.

"Was she flirting with me?" I hushedly asked Alex, but the laugh she gave was anything but quiet.

"Don't be so self involved - she's like that with everyone."

"Self involved? I'm not self involved!" I said, a little too high pitched as it caught the attention of a couple of the people behind us. Alex just laughed, like she knew I'd have that reaction and enjoyed that I'd played right into it. But she couldn't know that already. She didn't know me.

"Have you had a look at these? I'm thinking I might get some sort of pin-up girl." She flicked through the pages, casually dismissing the fact that I was still a bit peeved at being called self involved by a person who barely knew me.

I wasn't self involved. Was I?

"What do you think?" I followed Alex's finger to the picture it was pointing at. "I think I might get it on my arm, up beside the roses. It'll tie in nicely with the woman's face I have on my thigh and the roses beside it. They'll kind of match."

"I prefer this one." I said, pointing to a different girl, whose hair was up instead of down and slightly red. "Wait- there's a face on your thigh?"

Alex laughed at me. Again. "You didn't notice?"

"I noticed there was _something_ there, I just didn't necessarily notice what it was," I looked into her eyes and dropped my voice, "That wasn't exactly what I was paying attention to."

"Oh yeah?" Alex smirked, leaning into me, "And what _were_ you paying attention to?"

I turned away from her and back to the book, because even though I'd started the flirty exchange I wasn't sure I could keep it up without throwing myself on her. There was people here, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't appreciate seeing that… or maybe they would, but I wasn't going to let them.

"I think I might go for an infinity symbol." I said, trying to change the subject and hold in a smile while I looked back down at the book because I knew she was staring me.

"An _infinity symbol_? Really?"

"Yeah, they're cute! And I think if I'm going to break my tattoo virginity today I really should do it with something small."

"Your _tattoo virginity_?" Alex looked like she was about to burst out laughing again. She seemed to wear that look a lot. I wondered if it was just me she was consistently amused by or if this was just how she looked most of the time.

"Yeah. My tattoo virginity. And in the same way I wouldn't want to be penetrated by a ten inch dick the first time I had sex, I don't want to get some massive artwork the first time I get tattooed. I need to be eased into it."

"Wow, gotta say hearing you talk about dicks is a real turn off. I welcome the sex talk but please gear it more towards the pussy side of things in future, yeah?"

I laughed, softly, "noted."

We sat down on the small leather sofa when the heavily tattooed, heavy set girl that was sitting there had been called in for her appointment. I wondered what she was getting as she walked away, but only briefly because when Alex sat down beside me, so close that her thigh rubbed against mine and our arms touched, it sent a wave of electricity through me that rendered me unable to focus on anything else. I wondered if it done the same to her. If she was feeling the same kind of feelings I was. I hoped so.

"Are you nervous?" I asked her, even though I was pretty sure she wouldn't be.

"No. Are you?"

"No." She only had to look at me and I knew she knew I was lying. "Okay, _fine._ Yeah, I am. A little. I have a very low pain tolerance."

Alex chuckled. That sound so welcome to my ear. "You'll be fine, kid. Trust me. It'll be over before you know it. Like sex with your boyfriend."

That last line surprised me so much I gave a loud, barking laugh and had to hold a hand to my mouth while slapping her lightly on the arm with the other.

The thing that struck me most about being with Alex, was how comfortable we both were around each other. Most people, after having only met once and having spent most of that time either slightly intoxicated or wrapped around each other in bed might find it awkward. They might find that without the alcohol, the band, the dancing and the sex to distract themselves from each other, that they had nothing to say to one another. Alex and I didn't. We talked freely, fluently, like we'd known each other for years.

It was refreshing.

When the pink haired girl who I still had no name for called Alex to come through to the back room, I followed, and I watched as the woman etched her skin with the buzzing needle. If Alex felt any pain at all she didn't let it show. She chatted away to me and the girl as if nothing was happening, as if there wasn't a needle permanently scarring her skin.

Alex had been right before, this girl was good at what she does. Once she wiped the excess ink and blood away, what was left was a red headed girl with her hair up and her leg kicked up. It was pretty cool.

"You're turn!" Alex grinned at me, but I wasn't sure. Seeing that needle and the way it pierces the skin had brought up all sorts of anxiety toward this that I hadn't realised was there. Alex must have noticed. "You don't have to get one if you don't want to." She said to me softly, so no-one else heard. Sparing me the embarrassment of other people knowing I was having second thoughts.

"No, I do." I replied honestly, "I do want to." I was just freaking out a little, but I didn't want to say that, even though I'm sure she already knew.

"And you're still dead set on the infinity thing?"

"Yes!"

Alex laughed, "okay, okay. Just checking. Giving you one last chance to think of something more original."

"Oh because getting a tattoo of a pin up girl is _so_ original."

"Hey, at least this is art. Yours is just a fucking squiggle." There was a glint in her eye as I pulled a face at her, before the tattoo artist caught my attention, looking a lot more intimidating than she had before with that needle-gun contraption in her hand.

"So, where do you want this, Piper?"

"Uhm…" I hadn't thought about where to put it. Why hadn't I thought about that? "My wrist, maybe?"

I don't know why I looked to Alex, but she replied with a very definite, but somehow not harsh, "Fuck no, Pipes. You are not getting it on your wrist. Do not be that person."

"Fine," I probably would have fought it, because I quite liked the idea of having a wrist tattoo no matter how basic it is, but her calling me by 'Pipes' softened me. It had been unexpected. Only the people I was closest to ever really called me that and to hear it from her lips was so wonderfully different.

I forced my attentions back on what I was supposed to be doing and eventually said, "what about here," pointing to my ribcage, at the side just under where my bra strap would be.

"Oooh," said Alex, her face in a grimace, sucking air in between her teeth, "that's a sore spot. You sure you wanna go there?"

I took that as a challenge. I wasn't going to let her think I was some pussy, even if the fact she had said that did scare me just a little.

I hopped on to the chair Alex hadn't long left and pulled one arm out of my top. Catching Alex's eye as it glanced towards my bare stomach just as I realised the last time she seen this much of my skin we'd been in bed together.

That was a thought I had to shake off though. Now wasn't the time for thinking things like that.

I lay down on my side and lightly gasped as the tattoo artist touched me with her cold gloved hands.

"I can't believe you're actually fucking doing this," Alex said, beaming as she leaned over me a little to look at where the needle was then sat on the chair just in front of me, sliding her glasses up onto her head in a way that was just so effortlessly cool. Like everything about her was. "Good girl Piper is becoming a badass."

"Hardly." I said, then breathed in sharply as the needle pressed in near my bone. "Fuck."

"Relax." Alex soothed. It was funny the way she could change in an instant between mocking me and being so sincerely caring. "It'll be over soon. That's the thing with getting tiny tattoo's; they don't take very long."

But that pain hit me again, forcing any reply I might have had away and suddenly, instinctively, I reached for her hand and squeezed all the pain I was feeling into it. Only when the pain eased did I realise what I'd done, but I never let go, and she didn't seem like she wanted me to, in fact, she rearranged our fingers so they fit better.

I looked at her, the smallest of smiles on my face mixed with the odd painful grimace as the tattoo artist finished up.

"My Mom's gonna be so mad," I said, amused by the thought of it. Not that I was ever going to show her, but still, the idea that she'd hate it made me happy in a fucked up kind of way.

Alex laughed, because why wouldn't she? I'm a fully grown adult still caught under the wrath of my mother. "You can tell her the big bad lesbian made you do it."

Even the tattoo girl chuckled lightly at that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Alex**

Calling her was inevitable.

Piper had caught my attention and I couldn't let her go even though I wanted to. I had for a while. Until Nicky found that note and brought her back to me.

The very fact that she kept popping up in my thoughts made me want even more to push her away, but instead she stayed, her face coming to mind at the most inappropriate of times - like as I kissed another woman in my bed.

It didn't help that Nicky never shut up about her and that stupid note.

When I eventually did dial her number, I'll admit, it made me a little nervous - a generally foreign feeling for me. Nerves aren't something I usually have to deal with, but I didn't know how she'd react to hearing from me. I didn't even know if I really wanted her to answer. Part of me kind of hoped that she wouldn't and then at least I could say I tried and could put her out of my mind again.

But, after what felt like hours of listening to the buzz of the phone ringing in my ear, she picked up, and I was glad. Hearing her voice again was nice. Nicer than nice. It made me smile instantly. Did it bother me that at the exact moment I called she was having dinner with her boyfriend? Honestly? Not at all. I actually quite liked the fact that even though she was having dinner with him her attention was on me. She left him alone at the table to talk to _me_.

After the usual banter - Piper actually tried to pretend she didn't know who was calling. It was cute, but very unconvincing - we arranged to meet up later that week. For _coffee_ of all things. It was so mundane I almost laughed at the idea. But it was probably the best place to go. A dinner would've been too formal. This was casual. No big deal.

My heart done a funny kind of leap when I walked past that coffee house window and saw her sitting there, her long blonde hair straightened, the light shining off all the different shades of golden within it. The rounded neck, short sleeved purple top she was wearing showed off that glowing tan she'd gotten on vacation and her lips were a perfect shade of pink. We'd look so out of place together. She was so girly compared to me. The princess and the badass. The Johnny to her Baby. The Han Solo to her Leia.

She looked good, _really_ good, but the worried, almost disappointed look she had on her face damped those perfect features, and when I noticed the half empty latte sitting in front of her I realised she must have been here a while. Must have thought I wouldn't come and to be honest it was something I considered. This whole thing just wasn't me. I didn't know where it would lead and I wasn't sure I wanted it to lead anywhere.

Love is pain, after all. Love had hurt me before and I didn't want it to again. But this didn't need to end up like that, right? I wasn't going to fall in love with her. We could just have fun, Piper and I. I wanted to have fun with her.

After a moment I walked inside and she noticed me, that little frown of worry she'd been wearing transformed into a smile. That fucking smile… it was so perfectly sweet.

When I got to the table and ordered a drink, I was relieved to find that things just flowed between us. It was like we'd been picked up from that night in Cancun and dropped off here in New York. No time had passed and we carried on the conversations we'd been having like nothing had happened. Finding that in someone was, in my experience, pretty rare.

The idea to bring her to the tattoo place had been one I'd made on the spot. Some sort of little test, to see if she'd really be up for the type of spontaneity that my life brought. It hadn't ever crossed my mind that she'd get one too. Despite it being my idea I didn't really think she'd go along with it. She seemed like the type of girl who had to hover over these kinds of decisions for a while before committing. I guess I was wrong, even if her choice of tattoo _was_ a bit lame.

I can safely say it was one of the best visits to the tattoo parlour that I've have, simply because of how awed Piper seemed by the experience. It was obvious from the way she studied the room and the people in it that she'd never been somewhere like this before. It was adorable, the way she leaned over and watched as the girl inked my skin, she must have thought it hurt more than it did, by the way she grimaced and inhaled through gritted teeth. The needles usually had that effect. It was kind of funny, actually.

When it was her turn she seemed pretty terrified, and I was a little worried for her while being completely amused by the whole thing at the same time. I wasn't sure she could handle it, even if it was tiny, but more than anything I wanted her to. I wanted her to push past that fear she had. I don't think many people have encouraged her to do that.

When she lifted her top I couldn't help but glance at her exposed body, at her toned stomach and pink bra I could see inching out beneath the scrunched up shirt. She clutched at my hand - a move that I think surprised us both - when the needle hit a particularly sore spot and she crushed the pain she was feeling into my hand. It hurt a bit - she was surprisingly strong. Her hand stayed in mine though, even after she'd stopped squeezing it, after she no longer had any real reason to hold onto it. I intertwined our fingers, ran the tip of my thumb along her hand, enjoying the contact, relishing in touching her soft, smooth skin.

 _What the fuck has this girl done to me?_

I wasn't acting like myself and yet this felt supremely normal.

"What do you think?" Piper asked me, admiring her tiny tattoo in the mirror, a triumphant smile on her face.

"It's tiny and pointless but it's… cute."

"Aren't _all_ tattoo's pointless?"

"No, not when other people can actually _see_ them."

She made a face as if she was considering that, but then said, "People _can_ see it. But only people that I _want_ to see it. Thats the difference. It's more private that way. Personal. Not to mention that being able to hide it from my Mom is going to save me a lot of shit."

I laughed, then we went to the front desk to pay and headed out onto the streets of New York once again.

"Where to now?" Piper asked looking more than a little buzzed. Excited to see where the rest of her day with me would take her.

"I don't know," I said, deciding not to voice the fact that after getting just a glimpse of the skin under that top she was wearing the only place I wanted to take her was back to my apartment.

What we decided on doing, however, was pop into one of the bars we passed on the street. One that sold food and cocktails and had an outdoor seating area so we could enjoy the afternoon sun.

She ordered pasta, I had a burger. She got a margarita and I had a mojito. She gushed excitedly over how glad she was at getting a tattoo, on how she never thought this day would include something like that, how she'd actually planned on being a bit pissy with me for not calling her for so long. I don't think I stopped grinning from the moment we sat down. She was like a puppy; adorable and amusing to watch in how excitable and cute she was.

It struck me that she hadn't really been paying attention when the tattooist had been talking to her afterwards because she'd been exactly like this - on a high, so I gave her instructions on how to properly look after the little thing she has on her ribcage and informed her that next time we do this she has to get something cooler than an infinity symbol that was really only a figure eight that's fallen on its side.

"Next time?"

"No-one ever stops at getting only one tattoo." I knew that she hadn't been questioning getting another tattoo, her 'next time' had been in reference to us seeing each other again. To me taking it as a given that after today she'd _want_ to see me again. I already knew that she would, so I dismissed it.

"It's impossible to resist."

Piper shifted her gaze down to the food, tucked her hair behind her ear while her thin pink lips curled into a smile. She knew what I'd meant.

"Well, if there is a next time I am for sure getting it somewhere that it doesn't hurt so much."

"Oh come on!" I laughed, "It hurt for like two minutes."

"It was a long two minutes!"

Piper and I stayed in that bar for a while, until the food was finished and so were the cocktails we ordered. Until the sun started to go down and the air was filled with a cool breeze. Talking about ideas we had for tattoos - I had to tell her that there was no way I was letting her get a little heart tattooed on her wrist, her second one had to be at least a little cooler than her first - and she told me about the college she went to and that she was currently taking time out trying to figure out what it was she wanted to do with her life. Waitressing to make some money while she figures it out.

Piper talked more than I did. I enjoyed listening to her go on and on and I couldn't really tell her much about me. I couldn't tell her what I done for a living. Bringing up my involvement in a criminal empire was hardly good first date talk.

"This day didn't turn out a thing like I expected it would." Piper said as we left the bar and headed out into the city. Not heading anywhere in particular. Just walking.

"Oh really? You mean you weren't expecting to get tatted up?"

"Shockingly, no." Piper laughed, a sweet little chuckle. "I don't know how I'm going to explain it to Larry."

"Ah, the boyfriend…" Okay, I'll admit it, the reminder of him irked me a little. Not in a jealous way, just in a I'd-rather-not-talk-about-him kind of way. "Where does he think you are today?"

"Told him I was meeting a friend." The mischievous smirk she gave me was charming in how utterly adorable it was.

"Didn't mention that that 'friend' is one you've had sex with, no?"

"I feel like that might have aroused some problems."

"Aroused, huh?" I wondered if she'd used that word choice deliberately. The way she blushed at me pointing it out told me she probably hadn't.

"Where are we?" Piper asked, looking around. Forcing away the hint of a grin I could see curling at the edge of her lips.

I was about to reply that I didn't know, we were just aimlessly walking, until I realised we were heading in the direction of my apartment. "Pretty close to my place, actually. My apartment is just down there."

"You're taking me to your place? That's a little presumptuous of you, don't you think?"

"It wasn't _intentional_ ," that was true, but I can't help but think subconsciously I knew exactly where I was going. We stopped walking and I turned to face her. "We can go there if you want. Or we could go somewhere else? It's up to you."

A small, shy smile appeared on her lips. Those blue eyes sparkling. "Your place sounds good. I'd love to see what kind of place a woman like Alex Vause stays in."

Those eyes of hers flicked up and down my face. It was obvious she was thinking exactly what I was. The pink blush on her cheek gave her away. I tilted my head, gave her a flirty, open mouthed grin and raised my eyebrows, "I can't promise you'll get to see much of it."

My heart was thumping, but I kept my cool as I stepped forward, closing the gap between us so significantly that I could feel the warmth from her body. My hand went to her cheek, the other rested lightly on her hip, one finger slipping discreetly under the material of her top to caress her skin, and I kissed her. The small moan she made against my lips didn't go unnoticed. Piper had longed for this kiss all day, just as I had.

As difficult as it was, I didn't let that kiss deepen. Instead, I slowly pulled my lips from hers, holding her bottom lip for just a second longer, and then, with one last peck on her mouth - because I just couldn't resist it - I stepped back.

We walked closely together the rest of the way to my apartment - which wasn't long, only about ten minutes - the heat between us still evident every time my arm would brush against hers, sending a chill through my spine.

We didn't say much on that last walk, but the silence wasn't awkward. I don't think either of us wanted to break the tension that had built up, but as soon as I got us through the door to the apartment building, we were kissing again. This time it was her who'd latched onto me and I wasn't about to tell her to stop. We fumbled our way into the elevator and kissed the whole way up to my floor. Her body sandwiched tightly between mine and the elevator wall, my hand sliding up the curve of her spine under her top and the other into her hair.

For those few minutes we were in there I was totally engrossed in her, but that had become the norm for any time I spent around her. If anyone had joined us in there I doubt we would have noticed. Too consumed by our need for each other to care what was going on elsewhere.

When we reached my floor we stumbled out of the elevator and I somehow managed to direct us to my door. I searched clumsily for my key in my jacket pockets, while Piper moved her kisses along my face, down my jaw, on to my neck.

"Fuck," I breathed, in pleasure and frustration.

When my hand finally landed on my keys we stumbled our way inside and I directed her, without taking my lips off of hers, into my bedroom. Stripping my jacket and hers off along the way. Before we even reached the bed my hands slid up her top, desperate to feel the heat of her soft skin again, and squeezed her breasts. The way she moaned into my mouth sent a pulse of electricity through me, and she broke our kiss for just long enough to pull her top up over her head and discard it across the room.

Everything was happening so fast, so desperately, that I had to force myself to slow down, to enjoy it all a little more. Last time was a blur, I wasn't going to let this time be too. I wanted to take my time with her. To remember every single second of this.

As she fell backwards onto my bed, I pulled off my top and climbed on top of her. Her lips had become a dark shade of red from my lipstick, light smudges of which were also now dotted along her jaw and neck.

"So, this is my bedroom," I grinned as I settled myself on top of her, my face hovering only inches above hers.

"I like it," she said, grinning back, running her hands up my arm and then around my neck.

We caught our breath in the moments we were like that. Our chests heaving at first but slowly returning to normal - or as normal as normal could be while laying on top of a woman as sexy as her. It was the first time we'd stopped since entering the building.

Those seconds didn't last long. I could only look at her on my bed, blonde hair spread wildly across my pillows, top half only covered by that lacy pink bra I'd gotten a glimpse of earlier, for so long. With a hunger I felt deep in my gut, I kissed her again, pushing our bodies together so I could feel the firm of her breasts and the skin of her stomach on mine.

As I kissed her, deeply, sucking on her tongue and biting her lips, I pressed my thigh between her legs and ground down against hers. I needed to feel her. _All_ of her. I moaned into her lips just as she moaned into mine. It was a fucking beautiful sound.

But there wasn't enough friction. Those jeans needed to go, I didn't want anything coming between us. So, after swiftly removing my glasses because I knew they'd get in the way, I kissed my way down her body. Slowly, _so slowly_ , because I wanted to taste every inch of her skin - that skin that smelled of coconut moisturiser and sweet perfume. I kissed the tops of her breasts and bit on the soft skin there. I could have ripped that bra off and devoured them, but that could wait until later. We had plenty of time.

Piper writhed beneath me as I made my way down her body, being careful not to touch the raw inking on her side. Her hands were in her messy blonde hair, she was gasping and moaning and pushing her hips up against me with every kiss, every bite and every lick of my tongue. Loving every minute of it and not shy in letting me know.

Just the way I liked it.

There was nothing better than being with a woman who showed and told you just how good you were making them feel, and by the sound of it, Piper was in heaven.

I was, too.

Having her gorgeous body beneath me like this was… to use her words; magical. Already it was better than Cancun. Neither of us were drunk this time. We could worship each other's bodies without the alcohol to make it sloppy or clumsy. I could kiss her body like this and know I'd still remember it perfectly the next day, and best of all, I knew without a doubt that Piper was here because she really wanted to be. Not because she was lonely on vacation and figured she'd use whoever was there to satisfy that need she had. Not that that's what I really thought anyway, but it was always a possibility - especially with straight girls - that they used girls like me for the _experience_. Normally it wouldn't bother me, we were both getting what we wanted in the end, they were using me and I was using them, but I didn't want that to be the case with Piper, and I'm pretty sure it's not.

By the time I'd reached her naval, Piper had moved her hands into my hair, running her nails against my scalp and pulling at me. I unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off with her help, revealing a tiny pair of pink panties to match her bra.

Being the tease that I am, instead of pulling those panties of hers off, I moved myself down between her thighs and kissed all long the inside of her legs, down to her knees and back up again, reaching as close as possible to the apex without going near her most sensitive area. It drove her wild, just like I thought it would. She grabbed at my head, trying to guide me where she wanted me to go, bucking her hips up at me as if I didn't know and she had to show me. _As if._ I smiled into her skin, laughed a little too.

"Alex," she pleaded and I felt my whole body throb with desire for her. I fucking loved it when she said my name like that.

"Not yet, baby," I said to her, my voice a whisper as I moved back up her gorgeously toned body, putting my thigh where my face had been, allowing her to grind up on it. I kissed her again, and while I did she ran her hands up and down my back - it made me shudder a little - and then slid them down to my waist and started taking off my pants.

We were left in nothing but our underwear and we stayed like that, making out and grinding up against each other, for some time. Building up an extreme heat, becoming breathless, coaxing each other ever so slowly to that point of intense pleasure. It was so God damn hot and I told her so. I breathed her name into her ear, licking at her lobe as we thrust against one another.

It eventually became too much and not enough all at the same time. I had it to take it up a notch. The sexy pink bra she was wearing got swiftly removed and strewn to the side so I could grab her tit with one hand while sucking at her beautifully perked up nipple, running my tongue around it and across it with different speeds and pressures.

Piper went crazy for it, the words "oh God," falling from her lips over and over, her nails digging into my skin again and then, with my free hand I caressed my way down her body, letting my nails graze her skin ever so lightly until I reached her growingly wet panties and slid my hand inside.

"Oh fuck, Alex. _Yes._ "

This is what she'd been waiting for, what her thundering hot body had been yearning for ever since we started making out in that elevator. Her hands were up in her hair again. I don't think she really knew what to do with them as she writhed against my touch. Throwing her head back so it almost hit my rather grand looking black headboard. Back arching. Hips jerking upwards. My fingers played with her, running circles around her, applying just enough pressure but still not enough. She growled at me, a sound that came from somewhere deep in her throat, and pulled my face up to meet hers.

Piper's kiss was sloppy, messy, and full of lust. She bit my lip and ran her tongue against my bottom lip. I was the one in control here - the way I liked it - I had her hanging off my every movement, a slave to my touch, but I couldn't get enough of _her_. So much so that my fingers faltered while I concentrated on her kiss.

This never happened. I loved sex. I loved getting women off, teasing them, bringing them to the brink and back again. Making them come harder than anyone else ever had. I rarely got caught up in something so simple as a kiss. I never found the woman so enthralling that my fingers stopped doing their job. This was dangerous.

I pulled my lips away from hers and she breathed in and moaned all at once. Glad for the chance to grab some oxygen but at the same time disappointed at the loss of contact. I moved my lips to her neck instead, and after putting my fingers back to work on her clit, I slid them down and inside the warm, wet heat of her.

Piper grabbed me as my fingers curled and pumped. She grabbed at my back, my sides and my hair - anywhere her hands could reach. It made me chuckle a little as I bit on her neck. She was so… _passionate_. That little laugh was swallowed, however, as soon as she breathed out my name. Slowly, like she was deliberately drawing out each letter of it because she knew the effect hearing my name on her lips had on me. But she couldn't know that. I hadn't let her see.

 _Fuck._

My body fluttered and I ground against her hard thigh again, desperate to feel her. _God_ I couldn't wait to have her fingers, her tongue, _anything_ of hers on me. I pumped harder, feeling the walls of her tightening, expertly finding that sweet spot and focusing on it, while my thumb ran up her vulva and circled her clit, placing just the right amount of pressure in time with my thrusts. Piper rewarded me with a yelp, a sharp cry of pure pleasure and I kept going, moving my fingers faster and faster against her as her moans became louder and louder. Her chest heaved up and down, her hands grabbed on to the bed sheets, clinging on to them as if she'd fall if she let go. Looking and sounding almost like she was in pain when it was quite the opposite.

"Come for me, baby." I said to her, my voice deep, encouraging what I knew was on the brink of happening anyway. "Come for me."

And shorty later, with a cry of my name, that's exactly what she did.

"Oh my god," She panted, once she'd reached that high and come slowly back down again, trying to get her breath back, while I placed soft kisses on her neck and collarbone. "You're fucking amazing."

That wasn't the only time she told me that that night, and I had my own fair share of chances to tell her the same when she returned the favour I'd just given her. Piper worked miracles on me that night, making me feel things no woman has really made me feel before. For someone who had very little experience in this area, that was quite some feat. But something told me it had less to do with the expertise her fingers and tongue possessed and more about the feelings I was already starting to get for this girl.

I knew then that I was fucked. That if I kept going down this route things were going to change, I was going to feel things I hadn't for so long, but I wasn't about to stop it. I couldn't wait to see where we went.

I was fucked, but I liked it.


	7. Chapter 7

When I woke up in Alex's bed that next morning, I knew exactly where I was. People sometimes talk about sleeping somewhere new for the first time and in those first few sleepy seconds of being awake, they weren't sure where they were.

I knew. The memory of last night was still etched so vividly in my mind I couldn't _not_ know.

I could feel her beside me, breathing ever so gently, and I realised, when I properly opened my eyes, that despite being here for so long, I was only now getting to properly see her bedroom. All I'd seen of it last night was her bedsheets and the ceiling, everything else was just background. There could have been lion heads on the wall and I wouldn't even have noticed. Thankfully, there wasn't.

Alex's room was nice. Her black four poster bed was the main attraction but the rest of her bedroom was decorated quite elegantly, with distressed brick on the main wall behind the bed and a dark teal painted on the others. Everything looked expensive, from the art on the walls to the sheets on the bed. There was probably more stuff in here than I thought really necessary, but it looked good. The kind of room that looked dark and seductive in the evening, yet cosy and bright in the morning.

Slowly, I turned under the thick bedsheets to face Alex. She was still asleep, but despite her winged eyeliner being a little smudged and her dark red lipstick now completely rubbed off, she looked as good as she did last night.

Craving to touch her, I shuffled in closer, hooking my leg over hers beneath the sheets, and pushing a strand of her long dark hair behind her ear. My thumb caressed her cheek and then my fingers touched the underside of her chin. I wanted her to wake up, I wanted to see her eyes, but at the same time I was enjoying seeing her sleep. Watching her eyes move beneath her lids as she dreamt, and her chest rise and fall as she breathed.

After a while she stirred, making adorable sleepy noises as her eyes opened.

"Morning." I said, my voice croaking a little as it was the first thing I'd said.

"Mm- morning." Alex replied, a small grin coming over her lips as she stretched out a little and rubbed her sleepy eyes. "Were you watching me sleep?"

"No." My smile betrayed me. "Maybe a little," I confessed, touching the underside of her chin again. "You looked cute."

I guessed then that 'cute' wasn't something she was called very often or something she particularly enjoyed, by the short laugh and slight grimace she gave. That in itself was cute, but I didn't tell her that, I merely chuckled along with her.

"What time is it?" She asked, taking hold of my hand and kissing the top of my fingers.

"I have no idea."

It was only then that I realised my cellphone was still in my bag, completely discarded from the moment Alex had walked into that coffee shop. The whole of my attention was on her and nothing else. Even now I had no inclination to go and get it, despite knowing there'd be messages there from Larry.

Seeing what they said was the last thing I wanted to do right now.

Taking her jaw in my hand, I kissed Alex on the lips. Gently. Carefully. And when our kiss broke I turned in her arms and lay with my back pressed up against the front of her body. Her arm dropped over my waist, her fingertips drawing patterns on the bare skin of my stomach. The arm that wasn't around me I felt move the hair that was covering my neck, just before her lips landed there for a succession of quick kisses. I closed my eyes, savouring the moment until she stopped and all I could feel was the warmth of her breath tickling the back of my neck.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt this content.

"You have a really nice apartment." I said, softly touching the arm that was wrapped around me.

"I mean, I know that the bedroom is really all I've seen of it, but if this room is anything to go by, this apartment is pretty cool."

I felt her laugh a little, a small, sleepy kind of laugh. "Thanks."

I turned my head around to look at her, "This bed is incredible! It's so grand looking and so comfortable. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to get out of it."

"Mm," she hummed, tugging my body a little closer to hers, as if it wasn't already pressed tightly up against her, "I hope not."

I breathed out a small laugh, "that's not what I meant." I said quietly and kissed her. When it broke I settled into the pillow beside her, staring into her eyes - they were a brighter shade of green in the mornings than they were at night - and stroking my hand against her jaw. "I don't usually do this you know." I said after a few moments of just looking at her.

"Do what?"

"Have sex with people I barely know… I don't know you."

"What do you wanna know?"

"Everything."

"That's a lot of stuff." She said with a smile, while her fingers started to stroke the lower part of my back. It gave me goosebumps.

"What's your last name?"

Alex chuckled, as if this was a silly first thing to ask. "It's Vause."

"Alex Vause," I said, testing out the name in my mouth. I liked it.

"Alex _Pearl_ Vause." She added, "if you wanna be completely accurate."

"I like it." I moved my head in closer, so close the tips of our noses touched, and ran my fingers slowly up and down her back. "What do you do, Alex Pearl Vause?"

Alex hesitated for a bit, and I wondered why this was always such a difficult question for her to answer.

"Do you really wanna know?"

"Yeah."

She hesitated again. You'd think I was asking her whether she wanted to cut off her arm or her leg. She put the much thought into it, until she eventually said, "I already told you."

"No," I grinned, "you gave me some bullshit answer about being a drug dealer, remember?"

"And what if that was the truth?" She answered seriously. "Would it change anything here?"

I thought about it for a moment. Let the possibility swirl around in my head while Alex stared at me with those sleepy green eyes.

"No." I replied honestly. Surprising even myself with the answer.

While I wasn't exactly thrilled with the prospect of getting close to someone involved in something so criminal, I couldn't deny that Alex had a hold over me that even something like that couldn't break. It was a little scary, but at least scary was exciting.

"So, that's what you do? You're a drug dealer? I suppose that explains the expensive looking apartment."

"Not exactly." She replied and I'll admit I was a little relieved until she added, "I import it. Or I find other people to import it for me. I'm the brains behind getting shipments from one place to another, basically, and I'm fucking brilliant at it."

"So you're like… the managing director of import operations."

Alex laughed, and that warm feeling came over my heart whenever I succeeded in making that sound come from her lips. "For heroin, yeah. I guess you could call it that."

"Why'd you tell me?"

"You asked."

"I know but… well, you could have lied and told me you work for a bank or something."

"Could you honestly picture me working for a fucking _bank_?"

"No," I grinned, "But you know what I'm saying… I'm pretty sure when you do something like that it's not usually recommended that you tell people you've basically just met."

"No, I guess it's not." She ran the back of her fingers over my cheek and then kissed me, "I wasn't going to tell you. I was going to wait until… I dunno, until I knew you better or trusted you more but you asked and… I didn't wanna lie. I guess I already trust you. A little." She kissed me again. "You're not gonna turn me in are you?" She arched her eyebrow at me, making my stomach do that happy little flip, and I shook my head.

"No… not unless you deserve it." She hummed her appreciation of my suggestive retort and ran her hand down to my ass.

"Is there anything else I should know?"

"Like what?"

"Oh I don't know - if there's any _other_ criminal activity in your past that I should be aware of before this- whatever this is- goes any further, maybe?"

"Well, I'm not a murderer or anything, if that's what you mean. The moving of heroin is and most likely will always be the only criminal activity I get involved in… Is it my turn to ask some questions now?"

"I guess that's only fair. What do you want to know?"

"Has anyone ever made you come the way I did last night?"

My cheeks stung with heat from the unexpected question, and the amused way she looked at me. Like she already knew the answer and only wanted to hear me say it. "Not even close." I said, moving my hand across her body to cup her breast.

Neither of us had bothered with the inconvenience of putting any sort of clothing back on before we'd fallen asleep last night, and right now I was so glad we hadn't.

"Mm," she hummed, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment, "Next question; am I really the first girl you've had sex with?"

"You are." I squeezed the sizeable breast I was cupping, feeling my heart start to pound, "Why? Am I good at it?" I asked, trailing my hand ever so slowly down her stomach.

"Oh yeah," she said, closing her eyes and taking a sharp breath in when my hand reached that sweet spot between her legs. "Really fucking good."

My leg hooked over her body, keeping her as close to me as possible. "I guess I'm a natural." I said, before kissing her long and deeply.

Alex and I never took our attention off one another for most of that morning. We stayed in bed, we talked, we had sex and we even had breakfast. Our focus on one another was only broken when Alex's phone started ringing. A sharp reminder that there was a life outside of this bedroom. Alex went outside the bedroom to take the call, and I figured, reluctantly, that I should probably check my messages too.

Polly, the only person who knew where I was actually going yesterday had left me three;

 _Enjoy your lesbian date today. I'm finished work at 8 and expect to hear ALL the details then. Have fun! x_

 _It's nearly nine where the fuck is my gossip? Are you still with her? You guys fucked again, didn't you? x_

 _Okay you know what it was kind of funny before but it's morning and I still haven't heard back from you. Please text me back so I know this mysterious Alex wasn't a fucking murderer or something and you're not currently cut up into small pieces._

After a little giggle to myself, I texted Polly back;

 _Everything's fine. Alex wasn't a murderer, I have full function of all my limbs. I stayed over at hers last night. It was fucking incredible! Will call you when I leave x_

I sent the text and then added on another quick;

 _Oh, and guess what? I got a tattoo!_

The two missed calls I had from my mom were completely dismissed. She rarely called for anything important anyway.

There was one missed call and a text from work, that asked if I could work tonight to which I replied that I couldn't. Not just because I wasn't in the mood but because it was already after twelve and they wanted me to start at four. That wasn't enough time to gush to Polly about everything that had happened yesterday and this morning.

Once that text was sent and before I could look at the ones Larry had left, Polly's reply flashed at the top of my screen.

 _No fucking way! Are you serious! What did you get? Come to my place as soon as you leave hers. I need to hear EVERYTHING! X_

I quickly replied that I would and I'd let her know when I was heading over, before opening up Larry's thread of texts.

 _Do you wanna hang out tonight when you're finished meeting your friend? I was thinking of ordering takeout and having a cosy night in if you're up for it ;) xx_

 _?_

 _Could you text back, please? It's cool if you don't wanna hang out but I'd appreciate a response x_

 _Okay Pipes you're starting to freak me out. Text me back as soon as you get this. Please. x_

I couldn't help but feel bad. I'm not usually the type to take a long time in responding to people so I understood how not hearing from me must have worried him.

 _Sorry, phone died last night. Ended up going for drinks with Alex and stayed at her place. Didn't mean to worry you. x_

It was mostly the truth, which eased my conscience a little. The text sent just as Alex returned, her silk black nightgown elegantly flowing over her curves.

"Sorry about that," she said, a look of concern crawling over her features. "Work." She gave by way of explanation.

"Everything okay?" Not that I knew what 'everything' entailed, it just felt like the right thing to say.

"Yeah," but the way that frown was still etched on her face and how she ran a hand through her hair told me differently.

Real life was catching up with us and no matter how badly we wanted to spend the rest of this day in bed, we both knew then that we couldn't.

"I should probably get going,"

Alex looked as disappointed hearing it as I felt saying it.

"You don't have to," she said, coming to sit on the bed.

"I know, and I don't want to, but it's probably about time we went back to real life."

"Yeah, probably… hows the tattoo?"

"It's good. Still a bit sensitive but it looks good." I turned to show her and she softly ran her finger over it.

The touch made me shiver, and only then did I become aware that I was still naked. Its not that I minded being naked in front of her, it just made me feel decidedly more vulnerable now that she was covered up.

"Where are my clothes?"

This earned a chuckle from Alex, "I have no idea, babe. They could be anywhere."

I started to get up, using her bed covers to shield some of my nakedness. "Help me look, will you?"

"Oh, I'd rather not." She replied with a smug smirk.

"Alex!" I said, acting mad but the smile she showed me made it difficult to stay serious, so I threw a pillow at her. "Help me!"

"Okay, okay!" She eventually conceded and helped me gather up the bits of my clothing strewn out across various parts of her apartment.

"You don't have to go right now, you know?" Alex was sitting on her newly made bed, watching as I got dressed. "You can stay a little while longer. Even just to shower." She gave me one of those incredibly sexy smirks and lifted a perfectly curved eyebrow, "I could join you in there. That'd be pretty fun."

"Yeah it would." I agreed, fastening my bra and unable to stop the picture that formed in my head of the two of us getting wet in her shower together. "But that's only going to make leaving here more difficult."

I took my time getting dressed, enjoying the fact that I knew she was watching me and because I genuinely just didn't want to leave. I gathered up my stuff, helped her clean up the mess I'd helped to make in her apartment, and before I knew it I was heading for the door. Disappointed that this rendezvous was over. We'd been together nearly a whole twenty-four hours but it still felt like we'd only just met at that coffee shop.

"So when do I get to see you again?" Alex asked as I was heading for the door.

I shrugged, "I don't know." I walked towards her and put my arms around her neck, "You have my number, try actually calling it this time."

We laughed, and then shared a kiss. One unlike most of the kisses we'd had all day and all night. One that was slow, full of purpose. Delicate. I hadn't even left yet and I already knew I was going to spend the time between now and seeing her again craving these kisses.

As soon as we'd said goodbye and her door was closed behind me I pulled out my phone and texted Polly.

 _Leaving Alex's place now. I'm on my way over but I'll tell you this now; I just had the BEST SEX OF MY LIFE! :D x_


	8. Chapter 8

Alex Pearl Vause…

What else can I say other than the woman has me hooked. Completely and utterly and, honestly, I love it.

After our glorious day and night together I was on a high the like of which I've never experienced before. I raced to Polly's as soon as possible, I spilled every little detail of the day Alex and I shared and showed off my brand new inking. It may be tiny and - according to Alex - stupid, but it was significant. It might have seemed like a symbol I'd chosen at random, or because it was cute or small and therefore easier to get, but that wasn't the case. Not completely, anyway. I'd thought of it on the spot because I realised this is the kind of person I always want to be. The kind that can make spontaneous decisions on a whim. The kind who goes out for coffee and comes back with a tattoo. The kind who goes for a walk on the beach and ends up having the night of her life with a woman she only just met. When I'm around Alex I'm the kind of person I never thought I could be, and I wanted that tattoo to remind me to eternally be that person.

To always open myself up to the possibility of what could be.

It's significant because no matter what happens now, even if Alex and I never see each other again, this tattoo will always remind me of her, the days we had together and the way she made me feel about myself. We may have only known each other a short time, but Alex has opened up a part of me that I was scared to look into. She has shown me more of who I really am than anyone else ever has. That deserves to be remembered. Eternally.

I told Polly all of that, just as she was about to rip on me for my little angry eight symbol. I told her because I felt the need to explain myself, because I needed to say the words out loud. I couldn't have told Alex, or maybe I could have but I didn't want to. To be honest I quite like that she gives me a hard time about it. Her teasing nature is something I find quite sexy so why not give her a reason to.

I showed Larry it the next day, and for obvious reasons I didn't tell him the meaning behind it either. He was pretty surprised to say the least. According to him it was the least Piper-like thing for me to ever do, which was weird to hear because it felt like the most Piper-like thing to me. I could understand why he would say that, though. He doesn't know _that_ Piper, he knows the one my mother taught me to be. And he likes her… which is kind of sad, actually.

He liked the tattoo, too, once he got past the initial surprise of it. He told me it was nice. Cute. Which also bugged me, because it's _not_ nice, and it's not cute. Without knowing the reason behind it, it _is_ a bit lame and I think part of me wanted him to tease me about it.

I wanted him to be a little more like Alex.

I felt bad. I did. When Larry came over to my apartment and kissed me, and touched me in the same places Alex had, I felt guilty. Of course I did. Because Larry is a good guy, and I do care about him. Like Polly said before, he's safe. With Larry I can see the future. I can see the marriage and the kids and the nice house and all that, but is that the kind of future I want? Or is that the kind of future I feel like I _should_ have? I honestly don't know anymore. All I know is that with him I can see a life and with Alex I can't even see past the next day.

It's part of her appeal.

To my relief, Alex called me a couple of days later instead of waiting weeks like she had the last time. Like I'd feared she might do again. She didn't ask me out on that call, which I kind of liked because it meant I wasn't just a convenient fuck to her. She called because she wanted to talk to me, not because she wanted me to come over.

She asked how the tattoo was healing and how 'the boyfriend' liked it. When I told her he thought it was cute she laughed pretty hard.

"Of course he fucking would," she'd said, laughing down the phone.

Conversation flowed pretty easily between us, something I still sometimes found surprising considering how little we really have in common. She told me she was getting ready to go out and meet her friends in a bar that night, and I told her I was waiting on Larry coming over. Her night sounded more fun than mine.

Talking to Alex, just hearing her voice over the phone, has a slightly erotic feel to it. Everything she says sounds slightly suggestive with that smooth, deep tone of hers. Rich and luxurious. I didn't want our call to end, but eventually it had to when I heard a knock at my door that had to be Larry.

That wasn't the last I'd heard from her that night though, she texted me later on asking me how my night with 'the boyfriend' was going. If he'd made my legs shake the way she had, yet.

Of course he hadn't, and she knew it.

We met up the next day. And the day after that, and almost every other day for the next couple of weeks. Spending our time either in her bed or around the city. Visiting central park, hanging out in bars. We went to an open mic night, a burlesque show and a party one of her friends was throwing on their roof. I experienced more of the real New York City with her in those couple of weeks than I had in my whole life.

Then one day something different happened. She called me, and told me she was taking me out for dinner. Told me I had to dress up a little. Wanted to take me on a 'real date', she'd said, because she was going out of town soon.

Butterflies riddled my stomach as I got ready that evening. I couldn't wait to see her, I couldn't wait to see what a 'real date' with Alex was like, and I couldn't wait to see what Alex looked like dressed up.

She texted me the name of the restaurant and the time of our reservation and told me to meet her there. Assertive in the sexiest of ways. Larry was never like this. Choosing a restaurant to eat out in with him was a chore. He always said things like 'I don't mind where we go, where would you like?' Another person might find it sweet that he always let me chose where we ate. It annoyed me. I wanted him to take charge.

The way Alex was.

The place she'd picked was gorgeous. Fancy, with a thick air of romance about it. The lights were dimmed, candles were lit and the tables centred with a rose. I gave Alex's name when I arrived, and was pleased to find out that she was already here. For a change, I wasn't waiting on her.

Alex spotted me from across the room, and I took great pleasure in seeing her admire me as I walked over. Standing up straight and swinging my hips with every step, making sure to show off as best as I could the body hidden beneath the figure hugging dark green dress I was wearing. A bottle of red wine was already waiting at the table. It looked expensive and tasted like it was, too.

"This place is amazing." I said to her, once the waitress had taken our order.

"That dress is amazing."

"Thank you," I said, and then motioned with my finger for her to come closer. "You wanna know what's even more amazing?" I asked when she was close enough that I could say it without being overheard. "This dress? It's _all_ I'm wearing."

The way she looked at me then, like a cloud of lust came over those sparkling green eyes of hers, turned me on. If she could I was sure she'd climb over that table to get to me. Her eyebrow arched up and she slowly sat back, taking a sip of her wine. I think she was a little lost for words. I think my admission surprised her and turned her on in equal measure. It was just the reaction I'd hoped for when I'd made the decision to forego underwear earlier on that day. I knew she wouldn't be expecting me to do something like this, much less be so bold as to tell her as soon as I sat down.

It surprised me, too. I've never been this… sexually candid before. Must be the Vause effect.

Alex could barely keep her eyes and hands off of me during that dinner. I felt her stare burn through my back when I excused myself to go to the bathroom, she touched my hand across the table whenever she could, ran her foot up the smooth skin of my leg and I caught her looking at me countless times as I ate - though to be fair I deliberately took my time with every bite, catching her eye whenever I subtly licked my lips. The food was incredible, but having her eyes devour me the way they were was better.

No one has ever made me feel sexier than Alex Vause does.

After dinner we wasted no time in getting back to her apartment. Alex practically dragged me there. Not that I wasn't a willing participant.

We didn't even make it to her bedroom. Falling onto the sofa as she hiked up my dress and fucked me there. Twice.

Later on that night as I lay in her arms in bed, both of us naked and glowing from the night's activities, drawing patterns on her stomach while she ran her soft fingers up and down my spine, I asked her when she was leaving. For some reason I hadn't thought to ask until now. Sex had clouded both of our minds from the second we'd laid eyes on each other. Just like it usually did.

"Saturday."

Three days from now. My stomach sunk.

"When do you get back?"

"The following Saturday."

I turned to look up at her, resting my chin on her chest, "Where are you going?"

Alex smiled at me. "You ask a lot of questions don't you?"

I shrugged and lay my head back down again, "I'm curious."

"Prague."

I was going to ask why she was going, but figured that wasn't something she'd be able to tell me, and I probably wouldn't really want to know anyway. Something criminal. Something to do with drugs. I didn't know the ins and outs of what she does and right now it's better that way.

"You're so lucky. I hear Prague's beautiful."

"It is."

"You've been before?"

"Yeah. A couple of times."

I couldn't help but notice the sombre way in which she spoke. The banter and sarcasm I'd become accustomed with her was glaringly absent. I sat up, propping myself up by my elbow, resting my head on my closed fist.

"You know, if I was taking a trip to Europe in three days, I'd be so much more excited about it than you seem to be."

She gave me a small smile, and threaded her fingers through a few strands of the hair that hung by my shoulders. "It's work. I see more of the inside of hotels and the airport than I do of the city. It's not exactly fun."

"Then why do you do it?"

"I don't know." She seemed to consider it for a moment or two. "The money. The rush. It can be stressful sometimes and it can be… lonely," as soon as she said that she shifted her gaze and ran her hand through her hair, as if she was embarrassed by the show of honesty, as if she didn't admit it very often and was a little surprised herself that she did "… and yeah, it can be frustrating when you're in these beautiful places and you can't get to see much of it, but that rush of completing a shipment is… it's addictive. Besides I'm fucking brilliant at it. Like, really fucking good. I genuinely don't know what else I'd be this good at."

"I can think of one thing," I smirked and kissed her, turned on by the confidence she had in herself. "Are you gonna miss me?" I asked quietly, my voice barely above a whisper, letting my fingers roam and draw their patterns down her stomach, keeping my face so close to hers I could feel her breath on my lips.

"Mmh," she hummed, her eyes fluttering closed as my fingers travelled further down, past her naval.

I grinned widely, pleased with myself for the reaction I was eliciting from her, "Is that a yes?"

The chuckle Alex gave turned to a moan when I reached down at the fiery hot spot between her legs. "You're fucking adorable."

I noticed she hadn't answered my question. Either she wasn't going to and figured that'd be a harsh thing to say to someone, or she was and didn't want to admit it. I honestly couldn't say.

I leaned in and kissed her, "I know, right?"

And then she said something I truly wasn't expecting.

"I really like you, Piper."

I don't know what's gotten into her tonight, I don't know why she was suddenly being so open about herself, but I liked it.

I didn't know what to say at first, so I just smiled at her and then pulled the hand that had been between her legs up to hold her jaw and kissed her again. "I really like you too."

The sound of Alex's phone ringing echoed through the room. It seemed that it always did whenever we would really rather it wouldn't. She groaned as she reached over to grab it from the table beside her bed. While she squinted to read the name on her caller ID - her glasses still discarded on the table beside her - I saw the name Sylvia on her screen and wondered who she was. I wondered even more when she silenced the call and put it back on the table. It was the first time I'd seen her do that. She almost always answered that phone. Was this Sylvia a friend? Someone she worked with? (If that's even what you call it when your 'work' is criminal.) Or was she more than that?

It was none of my business, so I didn't ask. Even if this Sylvia woman _was_ someone she had an intimate relationship with, I was in no place to call her out on it. Alex and I had known each other for less than a month, and more importantly, I had a boyfriend. I was hardly in any place to expect exclusivity.

It didn't stop me hoping that this girl was just a friend, though. It didn't stop me hoping that Alex never saw her in the same way she saw me. It's unfair, I know, but I can't help it.

Once more the phone rings and after checking the caller ID again, Alex gave a gruff sigh. "Fuck. I'm sorry. I better get this." She threw an apologetic look at me as she started to climb out of bed, throwing on her sleek black night dress as well as her glasses. "I'll be right back."

"Okay," I said. My heart tugging in a funny way. A familiar way. The way it had when I first saw Alex at that pool in Cancun with her arm wrapped around another girl. I wanted to know who this person was that she had to go away from me to talk to, even though I had no right to wonder.

"What's up Sylvie?" There was a slight sharp tone to her voice as she walked out the room. Her night dress billowing behind her. "No… I was asleep."

That was the last I heard of the conversation. The rest of it too muffled between the walls of Alex's apartment to decipher. Whoever this Sylvie was, Alex was lying to her, and that made me think this girl was someone she was close to. Someone she didn't want knowing that she currently had a girl in her bed.

Thinking of it brought something else to mind. When Alex was away, would she sleep around? I didn't and I couldn't expect her to be loyal to me but the thought of her even kissing someone else made my stomach turn uncomfortably. I wanted her to myself. I wanted her to keep all of her sexual energy for me. I wanted all of her attention.

But I couldn't ask for it and I wasn't going to. If I can sleep with someone else than so can she. Not once since we started this… this… _thing_ we've got going has Alex seemed bothered by that fact, so I can't be either.

We were only having fun, anyway. It's not like what we were doing was anything serious. We like each other. We like having sex with each other. We're good at it. Really fucking good. But it doesn't go deeper than that. It's just sex and if she wants to have sex with someone else then she can. It's perfectly acceptable. Expected, even. Alex is a highly sexual woman, I can't expect her to say no to someone if they offer themselves to her and she's tempted. And I don't.

I don't…

"Sorry about that," Alex said when she appeared at the doorway again, wearing that same apologetic expression that quickly turned to a concerned frown, "You okay? You've got a weird look on your face."

"I'm fine." I smiled at her and encourage her back into bed. When she gets close enough I untie the loose knot holding her gown together and bite on my inner lip as it glides gracefully off her body.

Alex kissed me as she crawled back into bed, and just as she was going to position herself on top of me I pushed her by the shoulder onto her back and sat on top of her. One leg at each side of her waist. It was unexpected, I could tell by the surprised yet amused look she wore. In the few times we've had sex I've rarely taken charge. At first because I was worried about my inexperience with women - something I got over quickly with Alex's guidance - and then simply because it felt natural that way. Alex liked being in control and I liked letting her be, but right now I needed to be the one calling the shots. I had a sudden need to show her how much I liked being with her, how sexy I thought she was and how good I could be at bringing her to the epitome of pleasure.

Alex was free to go and do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted, but I was going to make damn sure that when and if she did, the only thing she'd be thinking about afterwards was how that girl wasn't as good as Piper Chapman.


	9. Chapter 9

**Alex**

A funny thing happened when I went to Prague. Something I hadn't expected.

I missed her.

This job is one I've been doing for a while. Travelling the world has pretty much become the norm for me, and during that time I've had my fair share of girlfriends, but not once have I ever gone on one of my trips and missed them.

I'm not a heartless person, as much as that may make it sound like I am. It's just that I was never gone long enough to care. I was in new, exciting places, stressing out over work, and usually sleeping with other girls. Girls I needed to move stuff for me. I simply didn't have the space in my head to consider missing anyone.

In most ways, this trip was no different to any other. I was in a gorgeous city, stressing out over work and waiting in Arrivals for the girl I convinced a couple of weeks ago to carry for me. A girl who more than likely would be full of the exuberance that - _hopefully_ \- walking out that airport with a bag full of undetected drugs brings, and expect to celebrate the success with a night in my hotel room.

Normally I was full of the same excitement and more than happy to oblige, and I am. It always gives me a rush completing a job and that energy will have to go somewhere… right? But as I sat there, in the uncomfortable airport chairs, surrounded by people waiting anxiously for their loved ones to get off their flight - some with flowers and little banners, I couldn't help but think of her.

Piper.

The girl who'd unexpectedly caught me in her atmosphere.

I thought of her because… well I don't know. I just thought of her. I wondered what she was doing. I kind of wished it would have been her coming off this plane right now, because I knew I'd have a better time with her. It's not even like we have anything in common, really. If we weren't attracted to each other we probably wouldn't be friends. We're too different, and yet we seem to sync well together. I enjoy her company. She's funny and adorable. Not to mention she's fucking hot. Most of the time I want to rip the clothes off of her, but then I enjoy just lying with her, or sitting with her, listening as she yammers on and on about nothing in particular. I enjoy pushing her to her limit, helping her break out of the sorority mold she found herself in.

I just enjoy her.

If she were here I could take her to a couple of the underground gay bars Prague had to offer and watch her squirm at the unfamiliar setting. That'd be funny. Eventually she'd get past that uncomfortable feeling from being in a place where you feel you don't belong, and realise that she _does_ belong here and she'd probably have the best night of her life. In fact, I'd make sure she did. We'd have a glorious night in bed and then go out into the city the next day. Walking around and admiring the gothic style buildings, soaking up the kind of culture you just don't find in the States.

None of this was something I even remotely wanted to do with the girl I was waiting on.

When all the other passengers on the flight from Madrid came through the gate and not my girl, Rebecca, I started to get nervous. I ran a hand through my hair as my knee started to bounce and then, when I caught sight of the mid length brunette wig I'd given her, I jumped up just as my heart did, a rush of elation spreading through me, feeling like I'd never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life.

But I had. This is the exact feeling I got every time I done this, and that's why we always ended up in my hotel room having sex. It was the adrenaline of it all.

This, however, was one of the few times I've ever had second thoughts about it. As we got into the car waiting on us and Rebecca whipped off her wig to reveal her pixie cut bright red hair underneath and pulled me into a kiss, buzzing with the relief from having not been caught, I thought about stopping it.

It was the first time I've ever considered pulling away from a kiss when I didn't even have a girlfriend back home. It was rare that I considered it even when I did. It's a mystery as to why this girl I've known for about a month has me second guessing my actions.

I'm a single woman. There's no reason for me to even _consider_ not taking this girl to bed. Piper is probably fucking that boyfriend of hers anyway, so it's not like she's not doing the exact same thing.

I didn't stop. Of course I fucking didn't. The girl was hot and I was horny. We didn't cuddle up in bed afterwards, though. Well, we did a bit. She clung on to me and I let her until she fell asleep and I got up. I went to the bathroom and then out of the en-suite bedroom to the main area of the hotel room. I sat on the little sofa, my legs folded up beneath me, and I called Piper.

"Hey," I said when she picked up, smiling to myself.

"Hey," she replied, sounding sweetly surprised by my call. It was nice to hear her voice. I'd been here three days now but the only communication we'd had was through text.

"Missing me yet?"

"Missing you? You're the one that called me. I think _you're_ missing _me_."

"Oh you do, do you?"

"I do… What time is it over there?"

I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the time on it. "Half twelve."

"Oh. Shouldn't you be out enjoying the Czech nightlife?"

"How do you know I'm not?"

"You don't sound like you've been drinking and I can't hear music and-or drunk people in the background." She laughed and so did I, "So what did you do tonight that was so uninteresting that it led to you calling me in the middle of the night?"

"What did I do…" I considered whether to tell her the truth or not. "Do you really wanna know?"

"I do." She replied without hesitation and I believed her. I think she understood that this was a possibility and maybe on some level she already knew the answer.

"I met Rebecca - the girl I had importing my stuff - at the airport, and now she's in my bed sleeping."

"Hm. So, you fucked some girl and then called me right after?"

She didn't sound annoyed, maybe a touch jealous, but not annoyed.

"Pretty much. For what it's worth she wasn't as good as you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmhm." I hummed in agreement, then stretched to look behind me into the bedroom to make sure my guest hadn't stirred. "Where are you?"

"At home. Just finished work. About to go get showered and head out with Larry for dinner with his parents."

"Wow. Fun."

"They don't like me very much."

"Why not?"

"I don't know." She sighed, "It makes no sense, I'm adorable!" That made me chuckle a little, "He's their only son and they're jewish so I dunno, overprotective I guess. _Especially_ his mom."

"Good luck with that."

"Thanks," she said, sounding wholly unimpressed, "So, when you finish talking to me you're gonna get back into bed with this other girl then, I guess?"

This time she sounded considerably more bothered by that fact than she had before. I don't know if she even realised it.

"I will. Just like you'll be getting into bed with your boyfriend tonight."

"Right… yeah. Funny that neither of us are getting into bed with the person we want to be."

I smirked and arched a brow, "I never said I didn't want to."

"You're calling me while she sleeps, Al. If you wanted to be in there with her you would be. But instead you're here, talking to me. Because you'd rather it was me sleeping in your bed than her… Am I right?"

There was no point in denying it. "Something like that."

A long, tension filled moment passed. Even over the phone she made me hot, like I could feel her here beside me, hear her heart pumping through the phone, smell her coconut tinged skin and feel her breath on me. It wasn't at all like we were hundreds of miles apart.

"I should go," she said. "I really need to start getting ready."

I made an agreeing sort of sound, knowing I should really go too, but then an idea came to me…

"Will you send me pictures?" I asked, grinning as I bit on my lip.

"Of me getting ready?"

"Of you… getting out the shower… All naked and wet. Of you in your underwear and in whatever you decide to wear tonight. I wanna see it all."

"Naked and wet, huh?" I could hear the smile in her voice and the flirty edge her tone took on. "Will you send me some too?"

"Sure. Whatcha wanna see?"

"Surprise me." Her voice was low, whispered and breathy. "The fewer clothes the better."

"Fuck," I breathed, throwing my head back against the sofa. The way she was talking to me, the sexy, suggestive sound of her was turning me on. "This is making me so hot."

"Mmh, me too…"

It was. I could hear the heat in her voice. It made me burn between my thighs.

"I'll think of you in the shower… We haven't tried that yet, you know. Shower sex."

"No, we haven't. You enjoy shower sex?"

"Don't you?"

"It's a little overrated."

"I think I could change your mind. All that wet, naked, slippery-ness…"

"I think you could." If there was anyone to turn me into a lover of shower sex it'd be her. "When I get back we can try it."

I heard her hum a little moan. It made my gut tighten.

"I can't wait."

"Neither can I."

The rest of my trip flew in as we prepped Rebecca for her return trip, but the highlight of those last few days had to be the calls I shared with Piper each night. Ones that got especially more heated than the first and resulted in us talking each other all the way to climax. It was particularly hot on one occasion, when Piper was doing it while her boyfriend slept soundly beside her, and I while Rebecca had her morning shower.

Those calls only added to how desperate I was to see her when I returned, so I was glad when, on the day I was due to leave, she sent me a text telling me to come straight to her place after dropping off my things. Nicky texted me, too, asking that I come out with her and the girls and normally Nicky and the bar would be the ones to tempt me. It was almost like tradition for me to go out with them after one of my trips as a sort of unwind session, but the pull of Piper was hard to resist. Besides, she didn't exactly _ask_ me to come over, she _told_ me to. There was no option for me to say no, and that was pretty hot. I didn't know what she had planned - though I could take a pretty educated guess - and the intrigue of it and the reason Piper was being so… demanding, won over.

My flight landed in JFK in the afternoon, right in the middle of rush hour, so getting from there to my apartment was long and stressful. So much so that I actually considered texting Piper to say I couldn't come, because the thought of getting home and sliding into bed with a beer and a good book was becoming gradually more appealing.

Had it been anyone else I would have sent that text.

When I eventually got to my apartment I dropped off my bags and hopped for a quick shower. I needed to get rid of that musky feeling that travelling all day gives you, and then I called Piper, told her I was home and got her address to give to the cab driver. Talking to her brought back that eagerness I had to see her. I think the shower helped, too. I felt fresher. More like myself, and suddenly quite excited about not only seeing her, but, strangely, seeing her apartment. I had this need to know more about her, to understand her better.

 _Are you ditching me for blondie?_

I chuckled at the reply Nicky had sent to the text I'd given her about not coming out tonight. She knew me too well. I told her that I was as I climbed into the taxi.

 _Happy humping!_

I laughed again and caught the driver eyeing me strangely in the mirror. I wondered then how Piper and Nicky would get on if they met. I think they'd like each other. I think Piper might be a little intimidated by her brashness at first, but eventually they'd get along. It was hard not to love Nicky.

I pulled up at Piper's apartment building about fifteen minutes later. It'd have been quicker if I walked, I think as I hand the driver his money and head up to Piper's apartment floor. It was nice. Not quite as nice as mine but almost too nice for someone not very long out of college, working as a waitress while searching for a 'real job' as she put it. I suspect the Bank of Mom and Dad might have something to do with that. I rolled my eyes at that.

When I knock on her door it isn't long before she answers, making me feel simultaneously turned on and underdressed when I see her wearing a short black skirt and a tight fitting, cleavage revealing and almost see-through white top. Her long blonde hair in waves that travel down past her shoulders, sheer stockings and heels on her feet.

"Hey," I said, smirking as my heart raced.

"Hey." She replied, stepping towards me for a kiss. Only when her lips met mine did I truly understand how much I'd missed them. Their soft, delicate touch and the way Piper worked them so perfectly against my own.

"I wasn't expecting _this_ ," I said when we broke apart and I stepped inside her apartment, my eyes instantly travelling up and down the back of her body, hovering on her perfectly firm ass.

" _This_ is only the beginning," she said seductively over her shoulder, to which I raised an intrigued eyebrow.

Piper took my hand and led me through her dimly lit apartment, past the dainty kitchen and into the living area, where a single out of place chair, that looked like it came from the two person dining table by the kitchen, stood alone close to her sofa and coffee table.

"Sit down." She instructed, and I happily obliged. Enjoying being told what to do a little more than I expected I would.

"What is this?" I asked as I took off my black blazer. I don't know if it was the room or just me, but it was pretty hot in here.

"You'll see." Piper replied with a flirty grin as she took my jacket from my hands and placed it over on the sofa.

I took a moment to glance around her apartment, noticing instantly how much more organised and tidy it was than mine. She didn't seem to have much stuff around other than a few books, a couple of ornaments, some framed pictures and a few plants to add some colour. Everything seemed to have a place in this apartment, and it struck me that Piper would be the type to notice if something wasn't where it should be.

It was nice. Just nice. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't particularly appealing either. The walls seemed to be painted a pretty neutral colour (I couldn't really tell through the dimmed lights) and were decorated with a few basic paintings. Nothing overly exciting. Nothing that really caught my eye. The whole place kind of looked like it had been taken straight from a magazine. There didn't seem to be much of a personal touch to it.

My thoughts on her apartment were broken, however, when music started to play. Slow, sensual music. A man singing silkily over a heavy drummed beat. I think I recognised the song, but any attempts at trying to remember which song it was and who sang it were abandoned when Piper started to move her hips along to the rhythm of the music, running her hands up her sides while she kept her eyes locked with mine.

I didn't know how to react. A lap dance wasn't what I'd expected when I came here tonight. It hadn't even broke the top ten of things I thought might happen. It'd crossed my mind briefly when she sat me down, but I'd been too distracted by her to really think much of it.

I watched on in bewildered delight as Piper swung her hips and slowly lowered to the floor, as she turned around and moved that perfect ass of hers from side to side. I couldn't keep my eyes off her and when she started to dance her way towards me, I almost reached out and grabbed her.

But I didn't, because as much as I wanted her on top of me, as much as I wanted to take her from here into the bedroom to take off those clothes, I also wanted to savour this moment. To sit back and enjoy watching her do this for me, and it became apparent that this was exactly what she wanted too, when she lightly pushed my shoulders back so I was fully resting against the back of the chair.

"Relax," she whispered into my ear. I hadn't realised I'd been tense until she said that and my body did as it was told. My shoulders dropped as I felt a weight lift off them. "I'm going to take care of you tonight, baby." She kissed me on the cheek as she pulled away and then smiled before continuing her dance, and I realised then that there was no hope for me.

I was going to fall for this girl. I could see it happening. Rule number one; don't fall for a straight girl, was going to get broken and I was powerless to stop it.

I didn't really want to. Because Piper was everything I needed right now.

The song that was playing switched, and now a girl was singing along to a slightly more uptempo song but with the same sensual undertone. Piper came towards me again, but this time she straddled my lap, facing me, putting her hands on my face as she rocked her hips. Her body was so close to mine that my face was practically in her cleavage. My hands glided slowly up her thigh, sliding under her skirt to grab at her ass as she rolled her hips forwards and backwards.

"Fuck… Piper…" I said in a breathless sort of whisper, pushing my hips up as much as I could to meet hers. I doubt she heard me over the music, but she pulled back a little and to my delight grabbed the hem of her top with both hands and pulled it up over her head, revealing a red and black bra beneath it. Shaking out her blonde hair as she threw the garment to the side.

She smiled down at me, a devilish, turned on sort of grin, and I kissed the top of her breast. Sliding a hand out from under her skirt and up the curve of her bare spine.

Disappointment eased through me when she swung her leg over and stood up, my lap feeling suddenly empty and cold without her presence there, but not for long, as she seductively walked in front of me and pushed my legs open by the knees. The whole of my lower body tightened in an instant as she crouched down between my legs and swayed her way back up again, matching her movements effortlessly against the beat of the music.

This, in a way, was a form of visual torture. No matter how deeply pleasing it was, the girl was teasing me to the extreme and I both loved and hated it. It's something I'm not used to. I'm always the one in control and doing the teasing. I needed to get some of that control back.

"Take it off," I said, barely recognising my own voice for how deep it was.

Piper gave me the sort of smile that told me she expected I'd say that, and bent over towards me, leaning both her hands on each of my thighs. Her touch burning through my jeans. I wished I wasn't wearing them. "I will." She said, "In time. Be patient."

The song changed again but this time I couldn't tell who was singing or what they were saying, because all I could hear was the thump and the hum of the slow beat of it. Piper must have taken some time in creating this playlist, and so far she'd chosen well. Each song moved seamlessly into the other as she danced around me, in front of me, beside me, on top of me, slowly taking off each item of her own clothing and mine as she went along. Throwing me sexy, smouldering looks and kissing me on the lips intermittently while I ran my hands over any part of her body that I could, grabbing and lightly spanking her ass whenever she came close enough, until both of us were in nothing but our underwear.

A lap dance, I realised - especially one from Piper - was the perfect kind of stress reliever.

When she straddled me again, I undid her bra. Both of us a little out of breath, a shine of sweat gracing our foreheads - despite the fact I'd done absolutely nothing but sit here. Such was the effect she was having on me.

With her bra gone and tossed to the side, I seized the opportunity to finally move this along. Closer to the point where I could get some relief because as enjoyable as watching her dance for me was, it was driving me a little insane with desire.

I needed her.

I needed her touch, I needed her to take me up to that point of ecstasy and I needed it soon, because I didn't think I could take too much more of this.

"You're so fucking sexy Piper," I said before grabbing her breasts and placing my lips over her erect nipple. She gasped and moaned, grabbing at my shoulders while I sucked and rolled my tongue over that stiff pink bud.

"God I missed you," she breathed, sliding a hand up into my hair, and then, as if she suddenly realised that this wasn't the way this was supposed to go, she pulled my head away from her, and started trailing her own kisses down my chest, removing my bra and placing her lips over my breasts. I closed my eyes as she sucked and licked and nibbled away at my chest, and moaned rather loudly when I felt her fingers hook inside my panties and pull at them. I lifted my hips to help them slide off easier, and put my hand in Piper's hair when she once again pushed my legs apart.

"Yes…" I gasped at the first touch of Piper's talented tongue between my thighs. The wet heat of it complementing my own in the most perfect way. I gently pushed her head in deeper while her hands roamed up to grab my waist, my breast, and back down to my thighs. Her hands were all over me, just as her tongue went all over me, too. Sliding wetly up and down, swirling around my clit and diving into the centre of me.

It felt fucking amazing.

"Piper," I moaned her name, grinding against her face as her tongue worked expertly to bring me closer and closer to that point of climax. You'd swear she'd been doing this all her life. Sucking at my most sensitive spot and piercing her tongue as deep inside me as she could go.

It wasn't long before I was close - I'd been on the verge practically since I sat down - and Piper must have known by how much more desperate, how much louder, strangled and increasingly persistent my moans and calls of her name became, because her movements took on a steadier rhythm. She knew she'd found the perfect one and she was sticking to it, like I'd told her to all those weeks ago when she asked me to talk her through her first oral session.

I'd taught her well.

I came with another call of her name, my head thrown back, my chest heaving and my brow sweating. My hand gripping her hair as Piper carried on softly licking me while I rode out the last of my waves. Her lips left me for just a second before I felt them on my thighs, placing soft butterfly kisses on them until she stood up and sat on top of me again.

"That was incredible." I said eventually, taking hold of her thighs and kissing her lips.

She looked so pleased with herself. The sultry, sexy girl of before was gone and the adorable one was back. "You said your trip had you all stressed out. I figured you deserved a bit of a treat when you got back."

I smiled and kissed her again, only now realising that the music was still playing. "So… you did miss me then?" I asked, smiling, suddenly remembering her words from before. She nodded, and with one hand I pushed her hair away from her face. "I missed you, too."

I don't remember the last time I told someone that and meant it.


	10. Chapter 10

I've never been part of a love triangle. I've never cheated on anyone. I thought I'd feel guiltier about it. And I do, I do feel guilty.

Sometimes.

I never expected to enjoy it this much. The danger of it excites me. I relish in talking hushedly on the phone to Alex while Larry showers. I like being with her, having her lips on mine and everywhere else, and then being with Larry as he kisses me in all the same places. Knowing that she'd been there first. Knowing that she'd done it better.

That's a little fucked up, isn't it?

They are so different, Alex and Larry. I think that's why I take such pleasure in being with both of them at the same time. Alex gives me the excitement, the rush that I've never felt before, while Larry gives me the safe place and air of normality that Mom always told me I should look for.

Polly thinks I should have ended all of this already. At first she enjoyed hearing of all the new experiences Alex introduced me to. From the every day things to the sexual. Eventually though, she expressed her concern that I was jeopardising everything I had with Larry for what she called a _'lesbian experience'_ that she thinks I _'should have had in college'_.

That wasn't what this was, and I told her that.

"You don't get it, Polly." I said to her one evening as we worked our way through our second bottle of wine in my apartment, "being with Alex is more than that. It's…" I searched for the words, "it's… it feels normal. When I'm with her I feel more like myself than I ever have and I feel… she makes me feel sexy. She makes me feel really fucking good. And I don't just mean because of the sex, it's… it's _everything_. The way she looks at me and the way she laughs and the way she holds me. It doesn't feel weird and if this were just some… I don't know, some 'lesbian experience' or whatever, then it would. It'd feel unusual. When I'm with her I don't lie in her arms and think 'oh I wish she were Larry' or 'there really isn't enough dick in this situation'" I laughed because Polly did, before adding, "but when I'm with _him…_ when I'm with him I wish it was her."

"Do you love her?" She asked tentatively, after taking another sip of wine.

"No," I said, before realising I'd answered too quickly to really have thought about the answer. Because maybe I did. "I don't know." I added more honestly.

Polly re-filled her glass of wine before settling back on the sofa, her legs folded at her side. "Look Pipes, I don't care who you're with. If you wanna be with this Alex then that's fine, but you can't keep stringing Larry along. _I know_ ," Polly raised her hand, knowing that I was about to interject that she had no moral high ground, "I know I'm not exactly the best role model here. I've cheated on my fair share of boyfriends, but Larry is a nice guy. We both know that. If you want to be with Alex then you have to go be with her and let him go. And if this whole thing with Alex _is_ something that isn't going to last then you have to end it before Larry finds out and you end up with neither of them. I don't want you getting hurt in this mess."

"I know, I know." Polly looked at me like she didn't believe me and with a chuckle I said, "I do! I know that this can't go on forever and that someone is probably going to get hurt from it eventually but right now everyone is winning. Let me continue having my cake and eating it too for just a little while longer. It's so fun being bad!"

Polly laughed and shook her head, "You are one fucked up individual. But fine, keep eating the cake. Just please stop rubbing in my face how good the sex is, okay? It's making my lack of a sex life right now even more depressing!"

—

"Let's go out tonight."

"Hm?" I'd been texting Alex, and hadn't fully realised Larry was talking to me. "What did you say?" I asked, once iId finished typing out the message and sat my phone aside.

"Is everything okay with you?" he asked, looking a mixture of concerned and sad. "You've been so distracted lately."

Distracted. It's not the word I'd use, in fact, I don't think I've ever felt quite so focused. Focused on Alex. I wasn't distracted. Far from it.

To Larry, of course, distracted is exactly what I'd been and he was starting to recognise it. We didn't see each other as often as we did before, because I was - as he believed - working more often, or going out with friends more often, or too busy or tired from work to go and see him.

Whereas before I'd answer all his calls or at least return them as soon as I'd had the chance, I now keep my phone on silent so it doesn't disturb the time I have with Alex, or shoot me a reminder of him and bring on that pull of guilt that is always brimming somewhere below the surface.

I quite like it, though. The guilt. The rush of knowing I'm doing something I shouldn't be. The adrenaline that comes from almost getting caught. From having to think up new and unique excuses for things. Like the time I'd gone to meet Larry at his apartment after spending the day with Alex and had a dark shade of lipstick that I'd never once worn before stained on the collar of my top; or the time he'd found one of Alex's bra's in my bedroom - too big to be able to pass off as one of my own. The lack of sex drive, the smell on me that wasn't my own. Signs that would usually point to cheating, but suspicion never graced his expression, because why would it? The new scent on me was easily explained as a new perfume I'd bought, the bra one of Polly's that'd been left over when she stayed over one night, and the lipstick stain on my collar I said came when I'd been trying on a new shade at the store and accidentally wiped some on my shirt.

Why would it ever cross his mind that any of these things had come from a female lover rather than the alternative reasons I gave him?

In this sense, cheating was easy. A pair of men's boxer shorts in my room or cologne on my neck would be harder to explain away.

It scares me a little, though - how much I enjoy it. The guilt is never too strong for me to stop, and that's never been a part of my personality I thought existed. I never knew I had such a capacity for deceit.

We all have flaws, I suppose. Even Alex. She enjoys it _too_ much. Relishes in making it as difficult for me as possible. I'm convinced she deliberately left her bra in my room and those stains on my shirt and I told her so. But she laughed off my accusations as if they were stupid, and I got pissed off until she distracted me with a kiss.

There's that word again. Distracted. Maybe I am more distracted that I think I am. The focus I've put on Alex may have taken over a bit. I don't see Polly as often as I used to either, and when I'm at work I'm usually thinking about how many more hours I have before I can get to see Alex.

Alex, Alex, Alex.

It's becoming a bit of an obsession and I'm aware that that fire has to be controlled somehow.

That's difficult when the girl is so damn intoxicating, though. That throaty laugh and those emerald eyes.

It's made even more difficult when she travels so much, leaving that need for her to build and build until she returns.

"Everything is fine," I replied to Larry, giving him as much of a smile as I could muster. It warmed me to see how his concerned expression softened at that smile. He's a good guy. Polly's right. He cares about me and I him.

Why isn't that enough?

"Why don't we go out to dinner tonight?" I ask and he beams at the suggestion.

We pick a nice Italian restaurant, not too fancy, not too casual, and while he showered I called Alex to tell her Larry was taking me out tonight and I wouldn't see her.

"You're really going to ditch me for him?" She said, and I could swear I heard a hint of annoyance in her tone that she'd tried to play off as playful.

"I have to. He knows something's up."

"Alright, well, I have plans with the girls tomorrow so I guess I'll see you in a few days, then."

She sounded disappointed even though I could tell that, once again, she was trying to hide it.

 _I_ was disappointed. Knowing that I wouldn't see her tomorrow made it all the more tempting to cancel on Larry tonight. But I couldn't do that.

"Yeah, I guess so."

It struck me that this was the first time one of our conversations had ever been anything other than light and flirty.

This wasn't just a game anymore. We both cared.

Our conversation ended and I got dressed to go out.

Larry and I walked in the mild air of the New York summers evening to the restaurant only a few blocks away. Holding hands, walking close, smiling and happy, looking to the outside world like a regular, happy, in love couple.

During that dinner it kind of felt like that's what we were. We talked and he made me laugh despite his slightly immature sense of humour. It almost felt like it had back when we first started dating. He told me he loved me, that I looked beautiful and it made the wings of my heart flutter.

I considered that maybe Polly was right, again, and it was about time that I made that decision - quit what I was doing with Alex and got serious. Right now that didn't seem all that bad. A life with Larry could be okay. We could be happy.

Then that thing happened, that thing where you're so very sure of something but then something else makes the doubt beat into your heart. That something was seeing Alex, and in an instant being reminded of the way she makes me feel. How despite as happy as I felt I could be with Larry, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd be happier with her.

At first, I wasn't sure it was her at all. It'd seemed so unlikely. I'd seen the wavy, jet black hair and square rimmed glasses from afar and my heart had done that little jumpy thing at the familiarity of her, but I'd shook it off because it couldn't have been her. I'd told her Larry and I were coming here tonight, she wouldn't have come here knowing that… would she?

The waitress showing the two girls to their table blocked me from seeing for sure whether it was Alex or not and I realised with a drop of my stomach that if it _was_ her, she was here with someone else.

Only when she sat down a few tables diagonally opposite from ours did I realise it was her. My face flushed, my heart raced and my stomach turned. Feeling everything from shock to anger to - yes, I'll admit it - jealousy.

Our eyes locked as she took off her jacket and she had the audacity to grin and wink at my shocked expression.

I couldn't believe she'd done this. Showing up here deliberately - and I know it's deliberate, everything Alex does is deliberate - with some other woman. She wants to piss me off, she wants to make me jealous and the fact that it's working is only serving to piss me off even more. It was taking all I had not to storm over to her and ask what the fuck she thinks she's doing and ask who the hell that girl is.

"Pipes?"

"Huh, yeah, what?" I snapped my concentration back to Larry, who looked off in the direction I had been. For a split second I thought he might recognise her as the woman I'd been sleeping with when he looked her way, even though that was impossible because they'd never crossed paths before. To him she was just another restaurant go-er, out for dinner with her her friend.

She had better be just a friend, anyway. It might be completely hypocritical but no matter how hard I pretended it wouldn't bother me if Alex and that girl were more than just friends, I knew it would drive me crazy. I could already feel it boiling my blood.

"Have you decided what you're ordering?" He asked, apparently deciding that nothing was happening in the direction I was looking in and I'd just fazed out into a day dream. Oh how wrong that assumption was.

"Uh, no. Not yet." I tried to shake off my annoyance and picked up the menu in front of me. Telling myself I wasn't going to let her get what she wanted out of me.

I should have known better.

We exchanged quick glances while our respective dinner partners ate their starters across from us. She always threw me a raised eyebrow or a mischievous grin to counteract my looks of utter disbelief. I wished those looks didn't make my heartbeat skip the way they did. It'd make it easier to be pissed off with her for doing this.

Halfway through eating my lasagne main course I felt the vibration of my phone in the pocket of my skinny jeans. I knew it was her. A glance in her direction almost confirmed it as I saw her discreetly place her cell back on the table, mid conversation with her guest. Giving her that same smile she gives me, opening her mouth wide in a chuckle and looking intently at her. It burned my chest. It turned my stomach.

For Larry's sake, I tried to pretend I was fine. Tried to calm the flush in my cheeks and ignore the burn of the unknown message on the phone in my pocket. I forced a smile and a distracted laugh at whatever it was he was saying and when the urge became too great, I pulled the phone from my pocket and kept my expression as neutral as possible as I read the messages Alex had sent.

The first a short, S _urprise ;) Happy to see me?_

Followed by, _I'll be going to the restroom soon. Follow me._

I scoffed at that one. Determined I wouldn't follow her. I know what it is she'd be expecting. Alex has a thing for sex in public places. This one wouldn't be the first restroom we'd done it in, and fucking me while my boyfriend is so close by would give her that extra thrill. I guess it would give me one too, but I was still pissed at her for pulling something like this. Especially for bringing some other girl along, too. I'm not about to let her get what she wants out of it.

Placing my phone back in my pocket, I glared briefly in Alex's direction, but her attention was on her friend. It was infuriating.

While still determined that I wouldn't be following her, I kept a close on eye Alex's table. Waiting to see when she would make that move and when she eventually did, I turned my focus back on Larry. Only looking past him for a second to glance at Alex's backside as she made her way towards the restroom. Swinging her hips in those tight fitted grey jeans, tempting me with her ass to follow her.

 _I'm not going. I'm not going. She can't win. I'm not going._

I repeated it over and over again in those seconds that felt like hours.

Larry was stabbing away at his spaghetti, struggling to get it to twist adequately around his fork, completely oblivious to the struggle I was currently having with myself. Desperate to follow her but at the same time determined not to.

Caving in was inevitable.

"I'll be right back." I said to Larry, and with a mouthful of spaghetti he nodded.

I couldn't help but take a quick look behind me at the table Alex had been occupying, just to see what the girl sitting with her looked like and with a smug satisfaction I deduced that I was prettier.

Petty, I know, but it still made me feel a small fraction better.

"Hey, you." Alex said when I entered the small corridor where the doors to the restrooms were, a cheeky smirk on her face as she moved her glasses up onto her head and took a few steps towards me. The space was long and only a few feet wide making it feel confined when the two of us were in it. "I was beginning to think you might not come, but then again, you always do."

I stepped back from her, but only a little, ignoring the flirty remark. "What are you doing here?!" I barked at her as quietly as I could.

"I'm having dinner."

"Here?! You _knew_ I was coming here with Larry, what the _hell_ are you playing at?"

"He doesn't know who I am." She was enjoying this, "And I'm free to go wherever I like."

"Fucking hell, Alex." I glanced quickly behind me, making sure we couldn't be seen before continuing. "This is all some little game to you isn't it? This isn't funny. You're going to get me caught!"

"So?"

I hadn't noticed that she'd stepped in closer, that the gap between us had shortened. I hadn't noticed but now that I had it was all that I could think about. It wouldn't take much effort to lean forward and kiss her and as pissed off as I was at her right now that was still all I wanted to do. All of a sudden the rage wasn't the only thing making my heart beat faster.

"Who is _she_?" I asked, sharply.

"Who?"

"That girl you came in with."

"A friend."

"A friend? Is that all?"

She tilted her head at me. Arched an eyebrow. Curled her lip. " _Is that all_? What's that supposed to mean? What you really wanna ask is if I'm fucking her, right?"

I shifted my weight awkwardly. Felt the rush of heat burn my cheeks and crossed my arms as if it would fend off the embarrassment. Becoming slightly aware of how long I've been gone and that Larry will be wondering what's taking me so long.

"Her name's Sylvie. She's an ex. And no, I'm not currently having sex with her."

My whole body flooded with relief, but only briefly. I recognised that name. It was the girl who'd been calling her before. "Why are you out with an ex?"

"Why are _you_ out with your boyfriend?"

My eyes narrowed at her. "Don't do that. It's not the same."

"Oh I think it is."

Her velvety tone clashed greatly with the curtness of mine. Hot against cold. Jagged against smooth. She'd stepped in closer again. The top of her toes almost touched mine. I could feel my heart pound in my throat and although I knew what was going to happen next, although I could see that smirk form at the rage of my jealousy and knew then that this was exactly what she'd wanted, I was determined to hold it off for as long as possible.

"Does it bother you that I'm here with her?"

 _Yes._

"No."

"So if I walked out there now," The extra step she took towards me forced me into stepping back until my back hit the wall, "and dragged her back to my room to have sex with her," she pressed her palm against the wall, just above my shoulder, and put her lips dangerously close to mine, "on the exact same bed you've came in so, _so_ many times, that wouldn't piss you off?"

"No." I said, trying not to breathe in her scent or look down her slender neck. "Do what you want."

My eyes pleaded with her not to.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Go."

 _Don't you dare._

"You're such a bad liar, Pipes."

"Fuck you, Alex." But the venom just wasn't there. "Fine." I conceded, "It would piss me off, okay? Of course it fucking would." My crossed arms dropped and in the confined space between the wall and her body I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. "I don't want to see you with her and I don't want you to take her back to your apartment. It might be hypocritical, it might be unfair but that's just how I feel… happy now? Get what you wanted out of this big fucking charade?"

I couldn't explain the look those piercing green eyes were giving me. Meaningful. Deep. Sultry. "Not yet."

I knew what she meant by that, but I was getting agitated. We'd been gone too long. Someone was bound to turn that corner soon and catch us. "I need to get back."

"No, you don't."

"He'll be wondering where I am. And so will your date." I added with spite. Clawing back the last remnants of my greatly dissipating anger.

"I don't care. Besides, if previous experience is anything to go by, what I've got planned will only take a couple of minutes."

That stung, but I still crashed my lips onto hers. No longer able to delay the inevitable and if it was going to happen it had to happen fast.

Before I knew it Alex had pulled me into the restroom and, just as she'd promised, finished me off within minutes. Put it down to her talent or my intense desire for her or a little bit of both, bottom line is she knew exactly what to say and exactly what to do, like no-one before her ever has. She knows me, and my body, _that_ well.

I fixed myself up as best as I could before returning to the table. Fixed my hair, re-applied the smudged lipstick and went back to Larry with my cheeks still pink, a beaming grin on my face and my heart still beating to Alex's tune.

"What took you so long?" Larry asked, his plate now empty. My lasagne cold. Not that I cared.

"Sorry. Mom called while I was waiting and wouldn't stop talking. You know what she's like."

I lied so easily and so perfectly it actually surprised me.

Our plates were taken, dessert was ordered and all through the rest of our meal I stole glances in Alex's direction. I bit on my lip, curled a hand through my hair, I took my time with my chocolate fudge cake, devouring it slowly the way I wanted to devour her. Putting on a show that I knew she was watching.

No longer mad at her for showing up, because after that how could I be?

Unfortunately, Larry thought it was a show for him and although I shouldn't have been, I was surprised when he leaned across the small table and kissed me. Not for long or very passionately but tenderly, and I knew Alex saw it. I caught her head as it darted back to her date when Larry pulled back. Saw the swish of her hair and the momentary ache in her features.

In a way I was glad to see it. It meant I wasn't the only one getting those feelings. I'd never get her to admit to it though. I knew that almost for certain. My hot headed nature might make it difficult for me to keep my feelings to myself in these situations but she was so cool she could mask it easily.

I felt guilty again. But this time it wasn't in aid of Larry's feelings, it was because I felt, for the first time, that Alex might be feeling the sharp edge of this triangle.


	11. Chapter 11

_Were you in his arms? You must have been, because you smell like him… You smell like him. - "Smell Like Him", Picture This_

 **Alex**

Piper entered the bar with a fluster of apologies.

"Hey! Sorry I'm late!" She said as she approached me, wrapping an arm around my neck and placing a quick kiss on my lips.

This bar was the only place she ever kissed or showed any kind of real intimacy towards me at all. I think probably because she knew it was a spot I frequented regularly, because it was dimly lit and most importantly, because it was not the kind of place anyone she knew would go. It was highly unlikely anyone here would catch her kissing me and run to tell her boyfriend.

That didn't bother me. It was more exciting having those secret touches in public anyway. The subtle hand to leg brushes and gentle yet very purposeful pushes against one another bodies. It was hotter that way.

What bothered me was the whiff of men's cologne I got off of her as she leaned in. The kind of musky, woody scent that just didn't appeal to me.

I forced a smile as I passed over the drink I'd ordered for her. A genuine smile worming its way through it watching her face light up at the sight of the margarita.

"Ah, my favourite. Thank you."

She pulled off her jacket, revealing a dark blue cami top that plunged at her chest, and sat in the bar stool beside me.

"Have you been waiting long?" She asked, and it struck me then how the tables had turned. How once I had been the one keeping her waiting and now I was the one standing by the bar wondering when she would show up. I didn't like that change.

"No, not long," I said, forcing another smile to convince her I was okay with this when I most certainly wasn't.

It wasn't even that she was late. That I couldn't care less about. It's the fact that she smells like him that has me so bent out of shape, and in many ways that's so much worse.

I don't want to be bothered by this. Jealousy isn't a thing I'm used to feeling. It's a foreign object in my body. A thing not wanted.

A thing I'd felt all too often recently. Most notably when I'd caught him kissing her across the table at that restaurant just last week. My plan to have _her_ wound up with jealousy at seeing me with Sylvie worked, but it backfired too and I hadn't expected that. I hadn't expected to feel that punch to the stomach when his lips dared to touch hers. There was nothing I could do about it, either, because this was a situation I'd gotten myself into.

It made me feel a little bad for how I'd been playing with her. Enough to tell Sylvie that the reason I'd brought her to dinner was to tell her our little 'thing' was over.

That wasn't part of the plan either.

I didn't enjoy being the other woman anymore, I realised that now. It was fun at first, but that only lasts until you start to care. Until there are real feelings involved.

Saying goodbye is harder knowing she's going to him. It's harder seeing her knowing she's been with him. It aches.

I tried to push it away. Tried not to think of all the reasons why that scent lingered there. Pushed away any images my mind conjured up of him kissing her there, on her neck and maybe lower, of him pressing his body to hers, wrapping his arms around her body, holding her close; of them in bed, naked, writhing and sweating and-

No. I had to stop. Piper was talking to me and I had no idea what she was saying. I wanted to ignore this feeling violently surging through my veins, but how do you even do that? Jealousy isn't a thing easily ignored. It creeps into everything. I couldn't even look at her now without picturing him. I couldn't smile without it being forced. I couldn't laugh without feeling sick.

I had no idea where Piper was before she came here, but she must have been with him at some point, and it was sending my imagination wild.

"Al, hello? _Alex_? Are you even listening to me?"

"Sorry. Yeah." I said by way of apology, but something in the way I said it must have seemed alien to her, because Piper looked at me funny. Curious and concerned. It melted me and those jealous feelings with it.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." I said again, because telling her the truth wasn't an option, and gave her a smile that didn't have to be forced this time. "Just got a lot on my mind, you know, with work and stuff."

We did have a shipment soon and Piper knew that. It made the lie easier to tell.

Her hand reached across the table to mine, sending those sparks through my entire body as soon as our fingertips touched.

It was a little disconcerting, actually - how easily she could switch my mood. Have me inwardly raging with jealousy and then melting into her touch.

I'm not an idiot. I know what this means. I've been here before.

What started out all those months ago as a bit of fun, a one night stand with a girl I'd met on a beach in Cancun, was now so much more than that and I had a choice to make.

This thing could go one of two ways. I could end it before it goes any further, leave her like I left the others, just before my feelings got too strong, and move on to the next one, or I could tell her.

Tell her that it bothers me that she still sleeps in the same bed as him some nights. Tell her that the thought of him kissing those lips of hers makes me feel a little sick. Tell her that I was falling for her, and that I was ready and willing to take our relationship to the next level if she was.

The trouble with that is I think she's still too scared to admit that being with me is what she wants. I think the idea of telling her family she has left her boyfriend to be with a woman is still too terrifying for her, and where would that leave me? It'd leave me exposed and vulnerable. I'd tell her how I felt and she'd freeze up and leave me there, chest cracked open and heart ripped out.

But as scary as that sounded, telling her was the only real option I had, because I couldn't leave her like I left the others.

Over these past few months I've been happier than I have been in a long time, and that was because of her. Piper made me feel things I haven't felt in a long time. She made me laugh in a way few people really could. Waking up with her beside me was a very specific kind of bliss that I just wasn't accustomed to.

No-one looked as good as she did first thing in the morning, that I was sure of. No-one could make me smile or make me laugh at that early hour quite like she could. Something in the slender shape of her face, the sparkle in the blue of her eye and the soft dimple in her cheek made those mornings an experience hard to top.

Leaving for the trips abroad, the trips which had become a huge perk of my line of work, had become decidedly more difficult. When I was away I missed her, more-so each time I went. To the point where sometimes coming home was the more exciting than leaving. Especially because I knew when I returned Piper would have some sort of special evening planed for us.

It's easy to see that I've fallen for her. It's a thing I just can't deny any more. Even Nicky can see it. In the way I smile at her messages and the way I talk about her. She can tell I've found in her someone I genuinely enjoy spending time with. Someone I can see a future with. I don't know what kind of future, but a future none-the-less.

When I'm in I'm in. When someone has me they have me fully. I've never been one to do things by halves and when I fall in love it's no different.

"You sure?"

The way she asked it, soft and concerned, brought a warmth to my heart. She could tell something was up and I liked that she could. It meant she knew me. It meant she was paying attention.

"Yeah," I replied, giving her a smile before leaning in to kiss her gently on the lips. She blushed when we pulled apart, when I looked into her eyes. Looked over her shoulder, making sure that no-one of importance saw what just happened and then squeezed my hand with hers.

My heart skipped at her touch, at the sweet way she smiled at me, and I couldn't believe how easy it was for her to make me feel like a lovesick teenager.

The next morning I woke before her. Watched her sleep for a little while like some idiot in a romance movie, before going to make some coffee.

"Pipes," I said when I returned and placed her cup on the nightstand beside her. She stirred a little as she woke, making groaning noises and rubbing her eyes before opening them.

"What time is it?" She mumbled, her eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the light.

"Almost nine. I made you coffee," Cup in hand, I slid carefully back under the covers, re-arranged the pillows at the headboard and settled myself against them.

"Aw, thanks." Piper said, her voice still adorably groggy from sleep as she sat up slowly and picked up her cup. "I have you _so_ whipped."

I laughed and lifted my glasses up onto my head. "The only one who stands to be whipped around here is you."

"Ooh. Is that a promise?"

I flicked an eyebrow up at her and smirked, leaving her question unanswered as I took a sip of my coffee.

Only a slight blush struck her cheek. One far less pronounced than it would have been had we had this exact exchange a couple of months ago.

"Mmm," she hummed as she held the cup up with both hands and inhaled the aroma of it. "This smells so good."

I don't think she expected a response, saying it mostly to herself, so I just smiled and lifted my laptop up off the floor.

It didn't escape me how… _normal_ this felt. How domesticated we would seem to anyone on the outside looking in. They probably wouldn't expect that I was an international drug dealer and Piper an adulterer. They'd never guess that I was about to book my flight to Cuba for a meeting with my gangster boss and Piper was probably on her phone texting her boyfriend pretending she was at her apartment, in her own bed and alone.

Things could be so simple, and yet they weren't.

"What's your plans for today?" Piper asked me, shuffling closer once she'd put her phone back on the nightstand.

"I don't have any," I clicked to confirm my flight purchase and then gave her a smile, "I'm all yours, babe."

The grin she shot back at me was wide. I felt it when she held my jaw and kissed me. "Did you just book a flight to Cuba?"

I nodded, "I did."

"Just like that?"

"Yup."

"Wow." She shook her head a little, "You have the best life."

"You can come with me if you want."

"Don't tease me like that." She replied, narrowing her eyes despite the smile threatening to curl at her lips.

"I'm not teasing," I told her with a laugh, closing up my laptop so I could turn to her, "I'm serious. Say the word and I'll buy you a ticket. _Just like that_."

She thought about it for a while. I could practically see the cogs turning in her head, and for a second, despite my better judgement, I thought she might say yes. The little smile her lips showed fooled me briefly into thinking she might go along with what she obviously wanted. With what I wanted, too.

"I couldn't." The smile that had been there she forced away. Pulling herself back to reality. Making my heart fall. I really would like to have her come.

"Why?"

I couldn't explain what made me force the issue. A strange sort of need to hear her actually say what we both knew.

"I just… I couldn't. How would I explain that to Larry?"

The whole of my insides fell at the sound of his name and I really had no-one to blame for that but myself.

"Right." I said. Deadpan. Without emotion. Turning to get out of the bed because suddenly all I wanted was to get away from her.

"Oh come on, don't be like that, Al." Piper pleaded, "What do you expect? I can't just up and go like that. What would I tell him?"

"Look, just forget I asked, okay?" I snapped back. Seeing the shock of the bite in her face. "Call it an error of judgement. I forgot that your priorities lie with him. With the normal life that Mommy wants you to have." I threw on my dressing gown that'd been crumpled on the floor and as I walked out the room said, "It's fine."

"Are you really getting pissy with me about this?" She asked, getting up and following me out of the bedroom.

"You know what?" I stopped dead in the stop and shot around to look at her, "Yeah. I am. Because I am so fucking _sick_ of being second best to you. I'm sick of having to hide this."

"You think it's easy for me?"

"Oh of course it's easy for you! For fucks sake you're the one fucking two people at once! Don't even try and give me that sad face and act like this is hard for you just because you might have to lie to your stupid fucking boyfriend every now and then about where you are."

Everything I'd been feeling lately poured out of me at once. What might have seemed to Piper like an over the top reaction to something small, was really the result of holding everything I'd felt to myself. The culmination of everything that had been bubbling on the surface.

"That's not fair. You knew this when you got involved with me. You knew what you were getting into."

"Don't give me that 'it's not fair' shit, okay? I'm not going to fall for that. It _is_ fair. It's exactly fair. And yeah, okay, I knew what I was getting into but that doesn't help much when you're leaving me to go to him. Knowing that I got myself into this mess doesn't make knowing you're fucking him when you're not with me any easier."

"I guess I never thought-"

"Never thought what? That I was a human being with real fucking feelings and I might not like smelling your boyfriend's cologne on your neck when I kiss you? That I might not have some sort of reaction to seeing the hickey's he's given you on your body? Are you so self fucking obsessed that you really never thought that kind of thing might affect me?"

In that heated moment we looked at each other, fire in our eyes, both feeling like we were right and the other was wrong and in some ways we both were. In that moment, I felt more open and exposed than I had during our whole relationship.

"You never gave me any reason to think that it should!" Piper threw back at me, "You told me that you found it hot knowing that I had a boyfriend and we were doing all this behind his back."

"Yeah, well, that's not how I feel anymore, okay? Things have changed."

"What's changed?"

"The way I feel about you, obviously. Yeah it was easy and fun at first being the one you messed around on your boyfriend with but now I fucking love you and every time you leave me to go to him it fucking hurts."

I didn't mean to say it and the surprise on Piper's face told me she hadn't expected it either.

"You what?"

The anger I'd felt was instantly replaced with something else. A kind of uncomfortable feeling that I tried to push away. I wasn't done being pissed at her yet. My face fell and I tried to harden it again. I fixed my glasses on my face - an unnecessary movement because they were perfectly in place - but it gave me something to do with my hands. I looked away and then back at her, her expression still stuck.

"I love you." I repeated and the room went quiet. Piper stared at me and I stared right back. Exposed but refusing to back down. Like I said, when I'm in I'm in. I've said it and there was no taking it back.

The ball was in her court now. She could tighten the grip around my heart and squeeze it till it broke, or she could release it and send it floating. Say she felt what I felt or tell me this had gone too far.

Things were going to change. They had to. They had to progress or they had to end, and the choice was hers to make.

What she done in the end, after what felt like hours of tortuous waiting, was neither of those.

She kissed me.


	12. Chapter 12

I kissed her.

Delicately, but with a burning passion, because hearing those words from her lips was a euphoric kind of feeling. Because having Alex Vause tell you she loves you is incredible, and it's a relief. Because I'd been feeling those same things as her, because I never really thought she'd feel them too and to know that she did… _God_ that felt good.

Gradually she kissed me back. Once she'd gotten over the shock of it all. Letting her lips work closely with mine, working her hands over to my back, stepping in closer, pulling me to her body but never deepening that kiss because this was just as it had to be. The kind of kiss full of meaning, full of all the things we felt for each other.

And then she pulled away and I had to hold back a whine at the loss of the contact I adored.

"Wait," she said.

"What?" I asked and she stared at me. Her eyes searching mine, but I didn't know what she was looking for.

"You-" her words faltered in a way they haven't ever before and it crossed my mind in that split second just how vulnerable she looked. Nervous almost. I could see the way she fought with herself over what she was about to say. "You didn't say it back."

I like to think I have gotten to know Alex pretty well over these past few months, but then something like this happens and she surprises me with just how soft in the centre she is.

It feels almost intrusive seeing her this way, because I'm sure that there are very few people who do. I wanted to fix it instantly. I didn't want to see her look so… scared.

I put a hand to her cheek, caressed the skin of her cheekbone with my thumb and said, "I love you, too."

The words were quiet, and they were out of my mouth before I even knew it. Such was that need to reassure her. To let her know that she needn't give me that look, that she needn't worry about my feelings for her.

The way her features softened, the way the slight frown of her eyebrows slid smoothly back into a curve again, the way the fear in those gorgeous green eyes drifted and her mouth curled into a smile flooded my heart with warmth.

"You do?"

The way she asked that… it was like a mixture of disbelief and relief. Like she was so happy to hear it but reluctant to accept it as the truth. It made me wonder what could have happened to her in the past to make her so unwilling to accept or believe that someone would really love her. And I do.

Seeing us now, you'd never think that only a few minutes ago we were in the midst of a heated exchange. It's part of her appeal - with Alex you just never know what's going to happen. But this, this was on another level because I can't help but feel like this is the most connected we've ever been. That in these past few minutes we've revealed more to each other than in the whole of our relationship.

Especially Alex. This vulnerability was a side of her I only ever glanced at before. In the mornings when she was barely awake or late in the evening after the throws of our romances. When her guard was down. I never thought she could become so open with her heart, so forward with her feelings. It's a beautiful sight. Seeing it makes you feel somehow privileged. Important. It makes me feel a responsibility I've never felt before. It makes me never want to let her down.

I smiled. Nodded. I couldn't think of anything else to say and the moment didn't need any words anyway. It was perfect as it was.

She kissed me, still smiling against my lips in a way that made me giggle a little. That euphoric feeling was back for both of us. I felt giddy, like I could jump up and down and squeal my excitement, but instead I put all that energy into that kiss.

I don't know how long we stood there caught up in each other. I don't know how long it took us to gradually make our way back to the bed, with careful movements and long drawn out kisses, but eventually we did and, as cheesy as this sounds, we made love. It's the only way to describe it, because this time it wasn't just sex. There was more feeling in it. More purpose. More of a sense of this is exactly where we belonged and everything else surrounding us, boyfriends and criminal careers, were nothing that we couldn't see through. Nothing we couldn't handle or overcome.

Every touch was gentle, every stroke of her tongue and every nibble of her teeth felt slow, like she was drawing out the moment, and I was too. When my lips graced her skin they did so with a passion, a soft kind, the kind you can only give to someone you are in love with. This wasn't just lust anymore, this wasn't just attraction, this was on a whole other level and with every touch I felt it. I think we both did.

It's weird feeling something as strong as this for someone who hasn't been in your life very long. I used to laugh and roll my eyes at people who said they were in love after such a short amount of time, but with Alex I could understand it. I could see how easy it is to become so instantly caught up in another human being.

Sometimes you just know. Sometimes that person comes along that just lights you up inside, shows you all the parts of yourself you didn't know or were too afraid to show. With Alex I feel like I can do anything. We can go anywhere and we can be anyone. The sky is the limit.

When you're up that high though, you inevitably have to come back down.

The euphoria fades and reality kicks in - I knew it would, but I hadn't expected it so fast. I hadn't expected how thrown and unsure I'd feel when Alex asked me a simple question of "what does this mean?"

We were still in bed. Still in that blissful, serene place in one another arms. Our bodies still naked. Skin on skin.

And I choked. When big questions like that come up I usually do. A fatal flaw that doomed a handful of my past relationships.

Dealing with emotional turmoil never had been a strength of mine, and the glaring realisation of what all this meant was starting to hit me.

I love her and she loves me, that much is simple, but if we were to be together that meant telling my parents of this love affair, it meant telling Larry I'd been cheating on him and that we were over. Both things I knew I could do but scared me equally and in different ways.

Larry would be crushed and as much as I'd love to not really care about that, I do, because he doesn't deserve to be hurt.

Then there was the fact that Polly and my brother Cal were the only two people in my life I knew I could tell all of this to and be able to count on supporting me, and when I think about that too much it hurts, because nothing sucks more than feeling like your family may disown you for something as basic as who you love.

"What does it mean?" I repeated to her, buying time.

"Yeah. For us." Alex's voice was deep and low, the way it always got after sex, the way that made the depths of my stomach burn. She reached over and put on her glasses, lessening my defences even more because god dammit she looked good in those. She turned on her side, one hand pressed against her cheek and the pillow and the other reaching across to play gently with the material of my pyjama top.

This was the shell-less Alex. This was the gooey centre reserved just for me. The one that stood to get hurt if I fucked this up.

"Are you going to leave him?"

I slid down the bed, closing in on her warmth, taking in the sexy scent of her. "Yes." I said, without a seconds hesitation because that is exactly what I intended to do.

"Today?"

"I don't know."

She looked disappointed. Of course she was.

"When?"

"Soon." Her eyes rolled and I knew she didn't believe me. "I mean it." I said, desperate to latch on to her, to pull her back. To keep her from being hurt by my answers. "I will do it. I just need time."

It took a while for her to respond, but eventually she gave a quiet, "Okay. I get it. It's not easy breaking up with someone… and technically I got myself into this. I knew what your situation was like, but Pipes I'm laying myself out here for you." Her stare went deep and it felt intense, because she was serious about every word she said, "I'm not going to do that forever."

"I know. I don't expect you to."

"I'm sick of being the girl on the side."

"I know you are."

"I don't like to share."

I smiled at her then and, eyebrow raised, she said "I mean it," in a way that sounded decidedly more flirty than threatening. "I want you to myself."

I kissed her, unable to resist those full lips.

"I'll leave him. I promise. I just… I need to wait until the right time."

The right time. Its a thing we say but do we ever really know when that is? When's the best time to tell your boyfriend you're leaving him for a woman? When they're having a bad day you don't want to add to it and when they're having a good day you don't want to ruin it.

Do you give them warning? Tell them the dreaded 'we need to talk' or spring it up out of the blue to save them the worry beforehand?

I've always been hopeless at breaking up with people. I never know what to say.

"What will we do?" I asked, moving the conversation on, trying to focus on our future, "When I leave him. What's next for Alex and Piper?"

"No idea. I don't make plans."

That made me uncomfortable. My smile faded. "None?"

She shook her head, "I never have. I don't know where I'll be in ten years or even in five. I just take life as it comes and go with what I feel. Thats what I want from life." She grinned at me, and said as if it was some grand statement, "To live in the unexpected." But I squirmed a little and she noticed. "Does that bother you?"

"A little. I like to know what I'm getting into."

Alex chuckled, but I didn't understand why that was funny. It was practical. People aren't successful by chance, they're successful because they know where they want to be and they work towards that. Like me, I know that I want to have a job in teaching one day. I want to fill my vacations with fun and adventure, but I want somewhere to come back to that is filled with love. I want a home. I want to get married one day.

Does Alex want that too? For some reason I can't imagine her settling down, and if she does will she change her career path? Being married to a drug dealer isn't exactly what I imagined.

I'm reading too much into it and I know it so I force myself to stop.

"Sorry, kid." Alex said, but she didn't seem all that apologetic. "I don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing or where I'm going but I know it's going to be entertaining. Filled with gorgeous beaches and fancy hotels and _amazing_ sex." Her smile grew wide, those green eyes sparkling delightfully. "What more could you want?"

I joined in her amusement, it was hard not to be drawn in by how exuberant she was. I liked seeing her like this. I liked how it felt to see her like this.

"That offer of coming to Cuba with me is still open you know? Ditch the boyfriend quick and we can go bask in the Southern American sunshine for three weeks together." She touched my cheek and kissed my lips and despite how badly I wanted to accept the offer I'd already refused, despite how much the idea of being away from her for three whole weeks filled me with dread, I didn't let my head run away from me.

"I can't." I said with a groan, like the decision was causing physical pain, "I'd love to, trust me I would, but I can't. It's not the right time…" The sparkle in those eyes of her dimmed and again came that urge to bring it back, "but look at it this way," I said, a chirp in my voice, "by the time you get back I'll have broken up with Larry and you and I can finally be together. Properly. For real."

That made her smile. It made me smile, too.

Some part of me knew it wouldn't be that simple. Some part of me knew that something would go wrong. Nothing was ever that easy.

The best laid plans often go awry, that's what they say, isn't it?

Neither of us were prepared for just how awry they would go.


	13. Chapter 13

**Alex**

Piper came with me to the airport when I left for Cuba the following week. It was the first time she'd done that. It was the first time I'd wanted her to, but rather than make leaving easier it made it harder.

Not that I showed it. I kept my cool with a "See you soon, kid," before kissing her and walking through that gate.

To some that might seem rather cold, I'm sure there are people who might be offended if that was the parting line when their partner was leaving for three weeks, but for us it was enough. I've never been the type of person to need constant validation. I don't need her to tell me she loves me all the time to know she does and because of that I don't feel the need to say it all the time either. I'm secure enough within myself not to need it.

It hasn't been long enough since we said it yet to know if that bothers Piper. I don't know if she wishes I'd say it to her every day, but it doesn't seem like it. While she's different to me in so many ways, I think this is something we share. The confidence to know and to see the love our partner has for us in the things they do rather than the words they say. I think she can see it in the way I look at her, how I hold her and how I kiss her. I think the fact we don't say it makes it more special when we do.

Nicky was, I think, the most surprised by this turn of events. When I told her I'd blew up at Piper, demanding she break things off with Larry or I was done only to end up confessing that I loved her, she was - to say the least - surprised.

I couldn't blame her. With everything she knew about me this was probably the last thing she expected to happen. For Piper to pull at my strings like that. For her to hold the power. But that's the thing when you fall in love with someone, isn't it? It makes you act in ways you never thought you would, and no-one, even the most secure of human beings, wants to see or to know that their lover is with someone else.

When someone is with me, when I love someone, I don't share. It's all fun and games fucking someone behind their partners back, but as soon as real, deep feelings are involved it's just not that fun anymore. It's not even all about jealousy, because I'm not that kind of woman. There's a difference between seeing your partner flirt with someone and knowing they're sleeping with someone else. Flirting doesn't bother me. I've watched Piper flirt in the bar with waiters and bar tenders of both sexes trying to get a rise out of me but it never worked because I knew there was nothing in it. I knew she was still coming home with me no matter how much she played with those other people. It actually pissed her off how cool I was about it. She wanted that reaction from me that she just wasn't getting, and I found that pretty funny.

Seeing her kiss the man I know she's having sex with… that's different.

I'm an all or nothing kind of person. You either have me or you don't. I have you, all of you, or I have nothing. I don't settle for any less than everything, and once I explained it to Nicky like that, she realised she really didn't expect anything else.

Alex Vause never has - and never will be - someone's second choice.

Falling in love was never part of the plan though. This wasn't what I wanted. Piper was only supposed to be a bit of fun to fill my time and that's what she had wanted too. Something a bit more exciting to break up the boring of her life. I don't think either of us expected to become as invested in this relationship as we had become. Neither of us wanted this.

As beautiful as it can be, love only complicates things. Especially in my line of work. The day before I left I tried to warn her of that.

"I'm a criminal, Piper," I said to her quietly as we stood on the roof of my apartment building. It was a crisp clear night, the November chill in the air, and Piper had wanted to see the stars. "It looks glamorous - visiting beautiful places, travelling in style, making money, throwing parties - all of that, but it's dangerous. I could go to prison - for me that's part of the thrill of it, but you could too, just for knowing me. Just for knowing what I do. Doesn't that bother you?"

I wasn't trying to scare her off… or maybe subconsciously I was. I had this habit of telling people to leave when I didn't really want them to. Some fucked up way of protecting myself before I fall any deeper and get hurt deeper when they eventually _do_ leave. Because they always do.

Self-sabotage in its finest. But the last thing I wanted was for her for her to heed my warning and go, I just wanted to make sure she knew what lay ahead. That life with me isn't normal. It could be dangerous and if she was coming down this path with me she had to know it. I had to know she was serious, to save us both from wasting our time.

"I'm not going to pretend I'm happy with what you do for a living, Al, so yeah it bothers me a bit, but I know what I'm getting into. I'm a big girl." She smiled and kissed me, "I can handle it."

I wasn't so sure that she could. I wasn't so sure that she'd be as happy as she is now with the person I turn into when work stresses me out. How could I be sure? She'd never seen me like that. She hadn't seen how cold and ruthless I could become. She hadn't been on those trips, she hadn't seen how it affected me, how I turned to one of two things when it got too much - drugs or alcohol and usually both.

Piper didn't know what she was getting herself in for, and I wasn't so sure she could handle it, but we were in love, and she was willing to take that chance as much as I was.

As I stretched out in my first-class seat on the plane, sipping on the complementary glass of champagne, I allowed myself a moment to relish in how good it felt to be in love. This wasn't a luxury I allowed myself often. I've been through enough heartbreak in my life to know this never lasts. Things go wrong, people leave and hearts get broken. It's inevitable, really. Because when you fall you always hit the ground. It might take years or it might take weeks, but a time will come when you will smash into pieces on the floor. The laws of gravity insist on it. You can't fall forever.

This didn't feel like falling though. It felt like floating. With Piper, falling in love didn't feel one bit like _falling_. With Piper, I felt like a better version of myself. I was happier. I wasn't drinking as much or taking drugs to cure the loneliness because I wasn't lonely anymore.

We were floating, and for now, while I was up in the air shooting through the sky, I could bask in that feeling.

* * *

 **Piper**

Finding the right time to tell Larry about Alex was just as difficult as I expected it would be. Whenever I summoned the courage to do it something came up.

Being a writer currently in the middle of writing some big scoop for the magazine he's working with, people were always calling him - his editor pushing him to hurry up; his sources dishing some dirt, something would _always_ come up and he'd need to go and I'd have to summon the courage all over again.

It was frustrating and it was annoying.

Alex never asked about it. In all the conversations we'd had since she left, she never even mentioned his name and that, at least, was a relief. I was already putting enough pressure on myself without her adding to it.

I wouldn't say I was surprised that she never brought him up - when we were together it was rare that she did - but I had kind of expected that she'd ask for an update, figured she'd be curious to know whether I'd done it yet or not. I suppose she knew that it'd only add to the stress of it all. That when I'd done it I'd tell her without her needing to ask.

Either way I was glad. The last thing I wanted when I spoke to her was to talk about Larry.

"How is Cuba?" I asked her on our last phone call. She'd been there nearly two weeks now and in that time we'd only been able to talk properly a handful of times.

"Amazing. _Stressful_ , but amazing. I'm currently relaxing by the pool with a Sex on the Beach."

"The cocktail?"

Alex laughed, that deep, raspy chuckle that even across the phone made my insides flutter. "Well it's hardly going to be the real thing is it? I mean, it _could_ have been if you'd come with me but…"

"That's not what I meant," but it was good to know that wasn't an activity she was participating in, "you never drink cocktails. You always laugh at me when I order one!"

"Yeah that's because you drink them in dingy bars, Pipes. Cocktails are a by-the-pool or an on-the-beach type of drink. Not a shitty underground bar type of drink. So, when I'm in places where the sun is shining down on me without a cloud in the sky and I'm lounging by the pool, I drink cocktails."

"Ugh, that sounds so good," I groaned, looking out my window at the rain falling from the New York sky splashing against my window.

"You could have been here you know? Sitting beside me at the pool in a bikini, topping that sexy body of yours up with a nice golden tan, sipping on a Sex on the Beach. _Having_ sex on the beach."

"Stop it," I said, groaning a little in jealousy. "Next time you go anywhere I am one-hundred percent there and we will do each one of those things."

"I'll hold you to that."

I laughed, "I hope so."

"So how's New York?"

"Cold, wet and boring… New York's not as fun when you're not here." Almost as soon as I said it I wished I hadn't. There really wasn't any need to boost Alex's ego even further.

"Aw, kid! Do you miss me?" Alex asked me in that infuriatingly sexy teasing tone.

She knew I did. She just relished in getting me to say it, like she had just a couple of days before she left.

We were on her sofa, her with her head on my lap reading a book while I watched a film. Together but in our own little worlds. Except I wasn't really watching the television; my hand was running through her impossibly silky smooth dark hair, my nails scraping gently against her scalp in a way I knew she liked because of the way her eyes sometimes fluttered shut at the touch. My eyes were unable to keep themselves from staring down at what I'd come to recognise as her 'reading face'. Her brow a little furrowed under the frame of her glasses, eyes completely focused. It isn't often that I describe Alex as adorable, usually she has too much of a hard edge to be thought of as something so delicate, but when she reads, when she focuses her attention on something, she's exactly that. Adorable.

It's hard not to look at her when she's like that. Hard not so study the way her lips sometimes move as she reads the words, the way her eyes sometimes widen at the shock or glaze over with a sadness at whatever is happening. It's a little mesmerising. You can't look away from it.

"I can feel you staring at me, you know, and I'd really appreciate it if you stopped." Alex's gaze shifted up to meet mine, "It's incredibly unsettling."

"I wasn't _staring_ at you."

"Right," Alex said, grinning as she sat up. I almost moaned at her to stop, to lie back down. I missed the warmth her head gave my lap. Missed having her hair between my hands. "Of course you weren't." She ran her hand through her hair, pushing the bulk of it to one side in a way that was so very attractive on her, and sat her book on the coffee table. "I really don't know how you're gonna cope being away from me for _three whole weeks_ if you can't even keep your eyes off of me for the duration of _one_ film."

I felt my heart beat a touch faster, my cheeks flash with heat. I wasn't embarrassed, not really, I just hated being caught out. Alex could see it, too, if the cocky smirk on her face was anything to go by. "You gonna miss me, Pipes?" Her eyes were fixed on mine, her voice lowered to a sexier tone.

My whole being screamed yes, but my lips said, "No, I'm sure I'll cope without you."

Her head tilted to the side, her eyebrows high with a tight smile on her lips, "really?" She shuffled closer, sending a shiver all the way up my spine as she put her hand on the bare of my thigh (it was only eleven am and neither of us had bothered getting out of our pyjamas yet). "You're really not going to miss me?" I shrugged and she kissed me, roaming her hand further up my leg, the coolness of her fingertips on the heat of my inner thigh giving me goose bumps all over.

Her kiss was soft but intense and over all too quickly. I barely had my eyes closed to savour it before she'd pulled back. "Okay." Her hand left my thigh and she stood up and walked away, leaving me cold and aching for her touch and her kiss back.

"What the hell!" I called out before I could even stop myself. I heard her laugh and I couldn't help but smile, too. "Get back here!" I knelt up on the sofa, looking over the back of it to the door that lead into the bedroom – the one she'd just walked through.

"Yes?" She asked me, returning a few beats later to the doorway, leaning against the frame looking as smug and sexy as ever.

I rolled my eyes and bit gently on my lip, "Fine, I'll miss you."

Alex chuckled, pleased in her win, and came to stand at the back of the sofa as she held my face and kissed me.

"What I _won't_ miss," I said when the kiss naturally broke, "is how much of a teasing _asshole_ you are."

She'd won that time, but I wasn't about to let her win again.

"No, Alex, I don't miss you." I said, finding it far easier to be firm in my defiance over the phone than in person. I'm pretty sure something in the way I spoke told her that I wasn't being serious, though. "Sorry to disappoint you but my whole life _doesn't_ revolve around you."

"Well that's no fun."

I heard the muffled sound of someone talking to her in the background and after a bit of shuffling and her talking back to them, she said "sorry babe, I gotta go. But that shouldn't bother you since you're not missing me anyway. I'm sure this whole conversation was just a complete inconvenience for you, right?"

I grinned at the playfulness in her voice. Being like this actually made it easier to be away from her. It made the air lighter, the conversations less intense and heavy - exactly what I didn't need.

"Exactly."

* * *

 **Alex**

Something was off.

It was the day we were due to fly back to New York and something was off. Something I was unable to put my finger on just wasn't right. I wasn't filled with the same excitement I usually felt at going home.

Some of that may be put down to the fight Piper and I had the day before, after she told me she still hasn't broke up with Larry. I know I should cut her some slack – breaking up with someone isn't easy, but the thought of going back there to be her secret girlfriend again just filled me with a weird sense of dread.

That wasn't all of it though. I wasn't mad enough at her to feel as weird as this, especially when I received a text from her while I was at the airport, telling me to have a safe flight and that she couldn't wait to see me. I was annoyed with her, but I couldn't wait to see her either and I told her that.

No. This wasn't about Piper, this was something else. Even the boss, Kubra, felt it.

This whole trip he'd been even more paranoid than usual, and this time I didn't put it all down to the drugs he was taking. He seemed genuinely worried about something. When he'd come upon me talking on the phone to Piper by the pool halfway through the trip he'd hounded me with questions about her.

Who is she? Where is she from? How long have I known her? Who is her family? Does she have ties to the cops? Does she know what we do? Can she be trusted with that information?

I'd reassured him each time that Piper wasn't a threat to what we were doing, she didn't even fully understand what we do because we'd never discussed it in detail, but that didn't ease his worries.

In general, Kubra was a pretty scary guy. We got on well, he liked me - I was one of his biggest assets, I'd made him a shitload of money – of course he liked me. But I never lay under the false impression that I was essential to him.

I knew that to him I was replaceable. That if I stepped out of line I'd be gone and lucky to still be alive. I'd seen it happen so many times. People came on to the scene and if they did something he didn't like they were gone. For good.

Kubra didn't fuck around. But he could be okay. He was pleasant enough, sometimes. We shared nights out together, got drunk and high and had a good time, but that's when he's in a good mood. When he's paranoid, like he is now, he's at his most dangerous. His eyes dart around and his knee jerks up and down. Paranoia makes him unpredictable. It's scary.

"You sure we can trust that girl of yours?" He whispered to me as we sat down on the plane. He wasn't even looking at me, too busy glancing around in suspicion at the other people filling up the first-class seats around us.

"Piper? Yes." I said defiantly. "Definitely."

He didn't even seem like he registered what I was saying. "Something doesn't feel right."

"I know." I replied, squirming in my seat.

"You feel it too?"

I nodded. Smiled up at the air hostess as she handed me a glass and a miniature bottle of wine and cracked it open. As soon as she was gone my smile was too, "Yeah. Since we left the hotel something feels… weird."

I wished I hadn't said it, because that confirmation only seemed to heighten his anxiety until he took a sleeping pill that knocked him out until we landed at JFK.

It was there, as we walked through the gate at arrivals a few steps apart like we always did to make sure we weren't seen directly together, that our feelings were confirmed.

A group of three guys closed in on him and two on me, the distinct flash of a golden badge shining from their chest and a silvery one on their belt.

My heart jumped into my throat, trying to decide in the few seconds it took for them to close in whether to make a run for it. I glanced at the glass doors but spotted a couple more guys on guard there. There was no way out.

I looked to Kubra, fear in my eyes and he shook his head and said, "say nothing."

I don't know if it was advice or a threat.

"Alex Vause?" One of the bulky guys said and before I could say anything in return I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Piper, probably. Asking if I'd landed yet or if I was still mad at her. Telling me to come to hers or that she'd meet me at my place later tonight. Who knows.

No matter what her message was it didn't matter now. None of those things would happen. The next conversation we'd have is one where I told her I'd been arrested.

Fuck.


	14. Chapter 14

When Alex called from the police station I thought it was a joke.

"I've been arrested," she'd claimed and I actually laughed. I rolled my eyes and _laughed_.

"Yeah, right." I said flippantly, waiting on her to tell me the real reason she'd taken so long to call.

"I'm serious," she replied and that time I heard what I hadn't the first time. The tremble in her words. The worry and the fear.

The things I'd been starting to feel only a few minutes ago when I hadn't heard from her even though I knew her flight had landed hours ago. I'd started to worry that something had happened, that she'd been in some sort of accident or that she was still mad at me for not breaking up with Larry yet.

I never pictured this.

I _should_ have, but ever since Alex had told me what she does for a living I'd pushed it to the side, pretended it wasn't a big deal. Told myself she wasn't a huge part of it and that she wasn't in deep, when she was. The little people don't get to fly all around the world in first class seats. The little people don't get phone calls in the middle of the night that they _have_ to take – no matter what. They don't sit up all night stressing out over the next big shipment. I knew all this. Deep down I _knew_ but I didn't want to face it and now I had to.

"I- I… _what_?" I didn't know what to say. This wasn't a call I'd ever had before. I didn't know how I was supposed to react. Part of me still thought it couldn't really be true. It couldn't be. "Why?" I asked, hoping that she'd hear that she was freaking me out and quit playing.

"Why do you _think_?" Her words had an unpleasant bite and it stung. "They picked me up at the airport. Brought me here for questioning." She took in a long, deep breath that shook when she exhaled. I didn't need to see her face to know she was scared and that in turn scared me. "I can't fucking believe this."

A sickening feeling was rising in my stomach as it became obvious that no matter how badly I wanted it to be, this was no joke. But maybe everything would be okay. Maybe this was all a big misunderstanding and she'd be out in a few hours. "They haven't charged me yet but according to my lawyer they're about to and then I'll probably be sent to the nearest prison."

"What are they charging you with?"

"Conspiracy to import heroin."

Hearing it out loud like that made it feel very real. I felt like I was either going to throw up or burst into tears. "Shit."

"Yeah. Shit… If they convict me I could be going away for between eight and twenty years." She took another deep breath and I could swear I heard her voice crack. Like she was either crying right now or was about to. I'd never seen or heard her cry before so I couldn't know for sure. "In other words, I'm fucked, Pipes. Completely fucking fucked."

Someone had knocked the air out of me - that's what it felt like. Like someone had just come up and punched me square in the chest, removing all trace of oxygen from my lungs. I reached out to the sofa and sat down before my jelly-like legs toppled me over. "Where are you? I need to see you."

I don't remember much of the rest of that conversation or of the week that passed between it and actually getting to visit her. My mind and my body were not attached. I went about my days as a half-self. I attended but was not present in everything I done. In that week I barely ate, shut myself away because I didn't want to have to explain to Polly what had happened, couldn't bear to see that 'I told you so' look she'd give me, and I didn't have the strength or desire to lie to Larry about what was wrong.

Alex was the only thing I had on my mind. In my free time I scoured the internet, searching for information on convicts with similar convictions and the sentences they received, as if it would somehow help knowing that maybe she'd only serve half of her lowest possible sentence even though that would still be at least four years. It didn't help, but I looked anyway. I called her lawyer but he couldn't tell me much other than keep me updated with where she was and how the case was coming along.

It wasn't looking good. I didn't think he was much of a lawyer to be honest. To me he seemed disinterested, but then maybe he was just getting sick of hearing from me.

More than anything else, though, I spent that week crying. For her and for myself. Selfishly, I wasn't ready for what we had to be over. I worried that this would ruin the one chance I'd had at feeling something more than I'd ever felt before. I wasn't prepared to say goodbye to the nights I spent in her arms and the days I spent in her company.

But I cried for her too. I lay in bed and wondered what kind of bed she was sleeping in, I wondered what her cellmates were like, if she was getting something decent to eat, if she was cold and scared and lonely.

When I finally got to see her, all my fears were recognised. The place was a hole and that was putting it lightly. It stunk, looked like it was on the verge of falling apart and most of the guards looked either completely unbothered by everything or like they'd take immense pleasure in whacking you with their baton if you so much as stepped one inch over the line.

When Alex came out into the visitation room with a handful of other people, in a bright orange jumpsuit, she looked like she hadn't slept the whole week (it did occur to me that she probably hadn't). Her face was paler than usual and her once vibrant and shiny black hair now hung lifelessly by her shoulders. But the thing that worried me most was the shining black eye she sported. Hidden a little beneath her dark glasses but not enough to be invisible.

At first, my joy at seeing her over-rode my concern for that eye. "Alex!" I called out, standing up to wrap her into a tight hug as soon as I could. It took a moment, but she hugged me back and I don't know why but in that split second of holding her I almost felt like everything was going to be okay.

Almost.

"That's enough!" Someone barked, but both of us were too caught up in that hug to know or care that it was directed at us.

"Hey!" The way he slammed something – his fist or his baton, I couldn't tell – against the wood of one of the desks made me jump. I scowled at him, but he only responded with a "Sit the fuck down."

"Charming." I muttered as we both sat.

"Prison _is_ known for the charm of its guards." She said and gave a rueful smile, "Believe it or not, he's one of the good ones."

"God. Really?"

She gave a sad sort of nod and it was then that her bruised eye came back into my focus. "What happened to you, Al?" She looked a little blankly at me and I added, "Your eye."

"Oh, that," she touched it gently under her glasses. She actually sounded like she'd forgotten about it and I couldn't help but wonder what else she'd gone through to make getting a black eye something you forgot about. "There was a bit of a disagreement over a toothbrush."

It sounded ridiculous and the look I gave her must have shown that because she laughed a little. Not her usual laugh. Not warm and deep, just a short listless sort of chuckle, but it was still a laugh. "Don't worry about it, it's nothing." She said and pushed her hair back with one hand.

Something I normally associated with her trying to flirt with me, but I knew better than to think that's what she was trying to do now. This time, it was a move borne out of nervousness. The way some people might bite their nails, Alex strokes a hand through her hair and fixes her glasses to her face. Things I was only learning now, because of this shitty situation we were in.

"It's so good to see you, Pipes." She said, her normally bright green eyes glazed over with a dark fear. "This place it's…" She sighed and shook her head, "I can't fucking believe I'm here."

My mouth opened but I didn't know what to say. I couldn't believe it either.

"It'll be okay," I said despite not really believing it, and reached my hand across the table to squeeze hers. "It'll be okay." I repeated with as much sincerity as I could muster, because seeing her so scared and vulnerable terrified me. All I wanted was to see that expression soften. For her to smile and throw some sarcastic line at me.

But that was selfish. _Self-involved_ , as Alex often put it. This wasn't about making me feel better. This was about her, but I didn't know how to make her feel better. I didn't think there was really any way I could.

I squeezed her hand tighter and held her stare until the guard barked, "No touching!"

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me?!" I turned around to him, incredulous, but he seemed unbothered and only reiterated his point with a "no touching, blondie."

The only solace in this was it made Alex laugh again. This time a little harder than before, like she was starting to become more comfortable with this uncomfortable setting.

I wasn't so sure that was a good thing.

We talked then for a bit about her case – or what she knew of it at least. I learned that a cop had gone deep undercover in their organisation and that's how they'd been caught. Turned out Kubra was right to be paranoid, he was just placing it on me when it should have been somewhere else. I expressed my concern over her lawyer but she insisted he was one of the best. 'Paid for by the boss'. An expert at getting the people off that really should be put away. She told me after her bail hearing she'd be sent somewhere else but didn't know where yet.

"Won't you get out on bail, though?" I asked, hopeful.

"This is a pretty serious charge so it'll be set high and I don't have the cash to pay it."

"Don't you have savings?"

"Yeah, but as much as I wanna get out of here I also wanna have money to come out to whenever they do let me out for good. How much freedom would posting bail really get me, Pipes? Think about it. A few months with a court ordered curfew and instructions to stay in the country – that's what."

She pushed her hair out of her face again and I had to stop myself from saying 'but you'll get to see me' like that would change anything. It'd probably only make it harder to say goodbye again in the end up, anyway.

"Are you going to be okay in here, Alex?" I asked, concerned, "This place, it's…" but I couldn't get the rest of my sentence out. The words trapped by a lump in my throat. "You…"

"I'll be fine," she answered, subtly touching my hand with hers while tears swam in my eyes. "I can take care of myself."

"I know but…" The tears that had been brimming at my eyes started to fall, "I'm gonna miss you." I'd tried so hard not to make any of this about me, but I couldn't help but tell her.

"I'm going to miss you, too." Her fingers squeezed my hand as she leant in to press her forehead against mine. I expected the guard to shout out again, but he didn't. Either he was busy paying attention to someone else or he'd decided to let us have this moment. Whatever the reason, I was grateful.

It was over all too soon. The guard called time on visitation and we got to hug again, "I love you," I said as we held each other and she repeated it back to me. I was filled then with a great sense of dread, because I knew soon enough that this hug would have to end and she'd have to leave and it'd be at least another week before I got to see her again.

We held each other too long, the guard yelled at us again and even more so when I kissed her. It was worth it. When she left I waited at that table and I watched and waved until she was out of sight.

The loss of her hit me all over again as I sat in the car. Because that's what it was – a loss. She might not be completely gone but in my everyday life, in the part she played in my life, she was. I wept with my head against the steering wheel for… I don't know how long. Until it hurt. Until there were no more tears to cry.

It was only when I pulled myself together enough to drive home that I thought of all the things we didn't say. All the things we didn't talk about. One glaring thing in particular.

The future.

Neither of us knew what it held now and that raised an unwelcome sort of panic within me. Suddenly the thought of me leaving Larry for her became so much scarier. If I did I'd not only have to explain to everyone that I was dating a woman, but that said woman was also a felon. Aside from everyone else, how would that affect me? I'd be left committed to a woman I couldn't physically be with, and for how long? Neither of us knew. Could be a few years, could be a decade. Staying together in this situation couldn't be healthy for either of us. I doubt anyone can last years in prison without being driven at least a little mad by the possibility of what their other half was doing on the outside, and I know I'd be driven to the same conclusions. Could I trust Alex to stay completely faithful to me in there? I didn't know that I could, and I didn't know that I had the strength to stay faithful to her out here either.

I love her. The last thing I wanted was to leave her, and I certainly didn't want to tell her this right now, but I couldn't see a future for us anymore either. Not in this situation, and I cried for that too. Broke down all over again for the loss of a relationship that never even got the chance to properly blossom.

But I wanted to be there for her, that I knew for certain. Maybe we'd have to break off what this was for the sake of both of our sanities, but we could still be friends, right? For now? I could still support her through all of this.

It was all so confusing and overwhelming. My mind a jumble of possibilities and completely fried from trying to figure out what to do for the best, failing to really see that right now there was no 'best'. This whole thing was fucked up and there was no way to make it better, only ways to make it a little less shitty.

Nothing would change the fact that the woman I loved was one I was no longer allowed to hold for more than a few seconds. One I could barely touch let alone kiss. One I can only contact through the phone or in a letter.

I felt a plethora of emotions; fear, concern, worry, love… hatred, _anger_. I was mad at her for getting caught, for being a part of the criminal organisation that let her end up there. I was mad at _myself_ for letting myself fall for her when I knew – _I knew_ – this might happen. I was mad at the cops for putting her in there, but most of all I was mad because I wasn't really mad at all. I couldn't be because the one thing I was feeling more than all of those was some sort of grief. I was heartbroken. Completely and utterly devastated and terrified by the uncertainty which lay ahead of me – ahead of us.


	15. Chapter 15

I held Alex's hand, walking through a deserted part of Central Park as evening turned to dusk. A chilly fall breeze flowed through the air that shook the almost naked tree branches, sent a chill around my neck and made the coloured leaves on the ground whoosh around us.

We were laughing – about what I don't know. My stomach was full of good food, my head pleasantly foggy from a little too much alcohol while my heart fluttered at the warmth of her hand interlocked with mine.

We were laughing and then we weren't. We were laughing, and then she was flicking an eyebrow at me, scratching the corner of her lip with her teeth, giving me a smouldering look that excited me as much as it scared me, the way a rollercoaster would. That look from Alex told me one very specific thing; she was horny, but I was very aware of where we were and that sex in public had never really been my thing.

But a rollercoaster is only truly scary on the climb up. Once it gets going there's too much adrenaline hammering through you, for the fear to really register and it's transformed into something else – exhilaration. That's what outdoor sex with Alex is like.

I was up against the tree, moaning. Not because of the bark sticking uncomfortably into my shoulder blades but because Alex had her body pressed so fully against mine, her tongue roaming deep in my mouth and her hand held firmly kneading my breast. Lightly aware that we were in the open and someone could walk by at any minute but equally not giving a shit.

She had that kind of effect. Her body too warm, her kiss too enthralling, her touch too masterful.

Then we were on the grass. Naked. Her head between my legs, her tongue working wonders all over me, her hands squeezing my hips into place while I writhed beneath her ministrations. My moans were louder and growing more frantic. My head tilted back and my spine arched. My gut pleasantly tightening as Alex worked me closer and closer to orgasm.

I reached my peak, calling her name in something like a squeal or a moan or a yelp, my hand lacing into her hair to keep her head where it was even though I knew she wouldn't dare move it.

And then there were flashing lights. My eyes blinded by car headlights focused on us even though that didn't make sense – we were in a wooded area, we'd only just been fooling around against that tree… that tree that wasn't there anymore because we were no longer in a wooded area of Central Park, we were in the middle of an intersection. The grass had turned to tarmac, the trees had turned to high rise buildings and we were surrounded by police cars. All of which had their bright white headlights focused on us.

"STAND UP AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!" Someone yelled in the crowd of cops who all had guns pointed threateningly in our direction. Alex and I did as we were told. Still naked. My heart still racing but in a much less desired way than before. I broke down, weeping and weeping as the crowd slowly descended on us.

"I'm sorry!" I yelled. "I'm so sorry! Please let me go! We haven't done anything!"

Alex stayed calm beside me. "I knew this would happen," she sneered but I didn't understand why. "I knew you were weak. I knew you couldn't handle it."

"I just want to go home!" I yelled, weeping again, unable to comprehend what Alex was saying and fully panicking at how close the crowd had come to us. So close it was suffocating.

Alex turned to me, almost disgusted by my outburst with a cold, dead look in her eyes and said, "I knew you'd leave."

A cold sweat trickled over my hairline when I jolted awake. No longer naked and surrounded by cops in the middle of the street, now lying in the dark bedroom of the apartment I shared with my fiancé, my heart beating up into my throat and ears and refusing to slow down.

The lump of a sleeping body beside me only acknowledged my sudden awakening with a squirm, a hum and a grunt and I was glad because I didn't want to have to explain this to him. I barely knew what was going on myself.

Alex Vause. It was a name I hadn't forgotten but one I refused to think about.

Until lately, that was, and I was as bewildered by her invading my headspace as Larry would be if I told him what I had just been dreaming of.

It first happened a couple of weeks ago. Polly and I were trying out scents for our new soap making business and something in one of the citrus smells brought her to mind. Something in the vanilla, lemon and lime combination made a memory of her flash before me. Of lying in her bed, our bodies intertwined and my head nuzzled into her neck.

"Smells like Alex." I said with a nostalgic smile before I could even think about what I was saying. The look Polly gave me was priceless. Since what happened between Alex and I happened, I hadn't mentioned her name. It shocked me as much as her and she looked at me as if I'd slapped her. I averted my gaze from hers and fidgeted away, hoping she wouldn't make me divulge further and thankfully she didn't. Our friendship so deep that she understood I didn't want to talk about it.

That night I dreamt of her in much the same way I had tonight. Much in the way I had done since that day. It always started out with us doing something normal – walking, eating dinner, relaxing in her apartment. One of the many things we used to do together, and then we'd be fooling around – sometimes it wouldn't go all the way to full sex, sometimes we'd just be making out but no matter what we were doing it was always steamingly hot, and then the cops would come and I would yell that I was sorry. Alex would tell me with that cold, dead stare that she knew I'd leave and I'd wake up in a cold sweat, confused and scared and longing for her touch. A longing so deep that it hurts. A longing to tell her I'm sorry and to make things right.

I slipped as quietly as possible out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to pour a glass of wine. Something to take the edge off. Something to help me back to sleep. Something to supress those feelings that keep popping up unexpectedly.

I thought I was over her. I really did.

I am over her. I am.

What happened between us was a slip, an experimentation that got taken too far. It was fun, but I've grown up enough since then to know it wasn't real and that I had been fooling myself to think it ever really could have been.

Alex Vause was a part of my life, an important part, but for a short time and that's how it was supposed to be. She taught me things. She taught me how to live without fear and to seize the moment. She taught me to love and make love in a different way than I'd ever experienced before, but she also taught me that good things, exciting things, things that make you feel completely alive aren't the things that last. You cannot live life on the edge of your seat because at some point you will fall off. Stability is key. It can be boring, but to survive and to live and to love you need it.

That's what I tell myself anyway. That's what I tell myself when I get bored, when I realise that the life I'm living is the exact life my mother wanted me to have and the one I insisted I didn't want.

One glass of wine slips easily into another. Tonight the thoughts are harder to dwell. Tonight the memories are too strong.

Six years it's been. Six years since I looked back as I walked out that prison visitation room to see Alex still sitting at that table, a glassy look in her eye but a determined expression on her face. One that ensured she did not cry. Not there. Not in front of me.

I wasn't so strong. A stray tear slid down my cheek and I hurriedly wiped it as I turned to walk out. Six years ago I rushed to my car and I cried my heart out onto the steering wheel.

For a long time I wondered what would have happened had I had the courage to fight. Would things be different had I walked back to her after getting up to leave, or wrote her a letter, or two or three. What would have happened had I tried a little harder to fight for what we had.

Eventually those what if's faded. Polly convinced me it was for the best and I did a pretty good job of convincing myself of that too. Life was easier that way.

I never forgot about her. I couldn't even if I wanted to. The tattoo on my ribcage made sure of that. But I didn't think of her often. After a while I stopped noticing the tattoo and I stopped wondering how she was. I stopped seeing her on the street and I stopped picturing her face as I made love to Larry.

I thought I'd stopped missing her. I thought I was over her. I thought that part of my life was well and truly in the past. A secret not to be shared with the world.

Apparently not. Ever since that day with Polly, Alex has haunted every inch of me. That day and the memories of her it brought with it triggered something within me so strong that I questioned whether I'd stopped missing her at all. It was like no time had passed and everything I felt for her then I felt for her again and I couldn't figure out why.

For the first time in a long, long time, I let myself really think of her. Instead of wine blocking out my thoughts I let it wash down those barriers that I'd built. I let myself think of the good times we had without guilt to tarnish it. I let myself enjoy the image of her face, the memory of her touch and smell of her skin. I let myself remember what it felt like to kiss her, what it felt like to touch her hair and to breathe the same air as her.

I wondered where she was now. Eight years she'd been sentenced to. If she'd behaved in there she could already be out and the mere thought of that sent my heart a flutter. The possibility became so real so quickly that I couldn't escape it. I couldn't think of anything else and before I knew it I had taken my glass of wine and half empty bottle to the other room, grabbed my laptop and settled on the sofa with it.

I googled her. I don't know what I expected; that maybe somewhere there was an article on her release or a Facebook or Twitter account attached to her name. Anything. But I found nothing. A few short paragraphs on a handful of news sites about her sentencing but nothing more.

Facebook threw up a few pages on her name but not many – with an unusual name like hers that was expected. A few male and a few female. A few in the states and a few as far away as France, but none of them the one I was looking for.

She could have changed her name, I supposed, or she could be completely social media free. Both seemed likely and both seemed more likely than the idea of her still being in there. Some part of me knew without any proof at all that she was out. Call it instinct, call it blindly hoping for the best, but some part of me just knew.

That begs the next question though, doesn't it? What would I do if I did find her? If one of those Facebook profiles offered me up the raven haired beauty I'd been looking for.

I had no idea. I didn't know what I was doing or what I expected from it, all I knew – in the clear way only drunk foggy head can be - is that I wanted to see her. I had to see what she looked like now, I had to know where she was and what she was doing. I had to know if she still hated me – I hadn't figured out yet if I'd forgiven her but that didn't matter.

The internet was no use, so, with a gulp to finish off the last of my glass of wine, I turned to the next best thing – my phone.

I scrolled down to her name, let my thumb hover over the four letters for a while, trying to remember the last time I'd called it. Before she'd gotten on the flight that would be her undoing, I think.

No one would answer, I told myself, this couldn't possibly still be here phone number, but what if she did? What would I say?

I had no idea but something was pulling me, something that I think has always been there. Something I'd been able to bury until my subconscious forced me not to.

Wine makes it easier to press down on that name. The wine makes me feel confident that it is the right thing to do, but only until it starts to ring and I start to panic, but I don't hang up. I can't. Too intrigued and terrified by the wonder of who would answer this call.

Would it be her? I knew for certain I'd recognize her if it were. Her voice is one I haven't been able to forget. One my dreams perfectly echo.

And just like that the call is answered, and my heart stops.


	16. Chapter 16

The ringing woke me up.

"Alex, would you answer that fucking phone."

The snap in Megan's voice made me smile as I turned over to grab the phone and put an end to the horrible sound the vibration was making against the wood of my nightstand. Megan has always been a lighter sleeper than me, and unexpected noise in the middle of the night is rarely one she welcomes.

I looked at the screen and noticed two things. First, that the number calling was one I didn't recognise and second, that it was almost four in the morning.

"Who the fuck would be calling at this time?" I mumbled quietly to myself.

"Either answer it or shut it off 'cause if you don't I will not be responsible for my next actions."

"Alright grumpy." I said with a grin and touched the answer button as I got out of bed. I had no doubt Megan wouldn't take kindly to me having a conversation while she tried to sleep.

"Hello?" I closed the door to the bedroom and pulled my dressing gown closer around me. No-one said anything, so I asked "hello?" again and prepared to hang up.

"Hi." A quiet voice said and my stomach fell to the floor.

Silence fell upon the call once again, but this time it was so thick neither of us could move in it. So many things went through my head. Why was she calling? How _dare_ she call! Why hadn't I kept her number saved just so I wouldn't do exactly this and answer her call without knowing?

"What do you want, Piper?" I finally said, cold and firm. I didn't even have to ask if it were her. I knew, and honestly, she was lucky to get that much - I nearly hung up.

"I'm sorry. I know it's late. I just- I-"

"No. Fuck you, Piper. You don't get to do this."

"Alex- I-"

The pleading in her words and the crack in her voice didn't have the same effect it used to and I cut her off, "No. Stop. I don't care what you have to say. You don't get to do this." I repeated, firmer this time and surprised myself by the emotion in my own voice. "You don't get to do this just because you want some attention. What did you think would happen? Think I'd hear your voice and be glad? Did you think I'd ask how the fuck you were and we'd have a pleasant little fucking conversation?"

"No, I-"

"Then what the fuck is this? I've moved on. You should have too."

"I know, I know." She said, with a sadness in her voice that almost made me feel a little bad for her. "Can we just talk? Please? I want to make things right between us."

I considered it for less than a second, before coming to the conclusion I knew I would come to. "No. There's no making it right." I replied, standing firm, refusing to let her convince me otherwise. "Goodbye, Piper."

I hung up and took a much-needed deep breath. My hand shook a little and my heart thundered, barely able to believe what had just happened.

The nerve of her! How dare she call after all these years and expect me to want to listen to a single fucking word she says. How dare she think I would even consider giving her the time of day to explain herself.

"Who was it?" Megan mumbled without taking her head off the pillow to look at me when I re-entered the room.

"Wrong number." I said as I slid back into bed, trying to act as cool as possible, praying that in the silence of our bedroom she couldn't hear the hammering in my chest. This was the first time I'd lied to her, too.

"Mmkay." She gave as a sleepy reply and went right back to sleep, but I couldn't.

Piper Chapman had forced her way into my life and I was livid at her for it. I lay there furious. So much that I couldn't stop thinking about it- about her and the way she left me. Remembering it all over again.

The last conversation Piper and I had is one I replayed for weeks on end, one I haven't thought about in a very long time but one I'm surprised to find I still remember every word of.

"I've been thinking a lot about this." Piper had said, sitting across from me in the visitation room after the usual pleasantries had been exchanged. After I'd told her the latest prison gossip and she'd filled me in on news from The Outside.

"About what?" I asked, knowing exactly what she meant. I'd seen her body language and the look in her eye change a little with every visit and, that day, she'd barely hugged me on arrival.

"About us... About our relationship and what it is while you're here."

"Look, Piper, if you wanna go- just go." I said, cutting to the chase. I saw no point in hovering around it. Better to get it over with.

"That's not what I'm saying, Alex. I wanna be there for you. I want us to be friends."

She tried to reach her hand out to mine but I pulled it away. "I don't need another fucking friend, Piper. If you don't want to be here stop being a cunt about it and just fucking go." I threw the words at her, crossed my arms and slammed by back against the chair.

I had expected that to happen. I had expected that eventually she'd want to break free from me and live her life and I couldn't judge her for that. I couldn't expect her to wait around on me forever, but I didn't expect she'd do it so soon. I didn't expect that she'd want to bail on me when not even a month had passed.

I was being selfish, but so was she and I guess nothing good was ever going to come out of that.

"I don't want to go, Alex." She told me, "I love you, I do, I just-"

"You can't leave him for me? Is that right? Not now that I'm a convicted criminal and all. Well you know what Piper, I don't need you. I don't _want you_ as my friend- I don't _need_ another friend so if you don't want to be more than that to me then just go. Get out. I don't want you here."

"Alex, that's not fair. This is a really tough situation."

"Don't you think I know that?" I said, feeling a lump starting to grow in my throat. Inwardly yelling at myself not to dare cry in front of her. " _I'm_ the one living it, Piper. You're only seeing it from the outside. You don't see what it's like in here… You don't get to pretend that this is your fucking problem too and you know what? I don't _want_ this to be your problem too. So just fucking go. Go and live your life however the fuck you want to live it but stay away from me because I don't need pussies like you in my life who bail when shit gets tough. Just go."

"Alex-" her voice broke and a tear slid from her eye but I stayed unmoving. I didn't mean most of what I said but I was hurt and I was angry.

I wanted her to fight. I wanted her to prove that she wasn't what I said she was. I wanted her to say, 'screw that, I'm going to be there for you' and make me believe it. But through those tears she showed me I saw something else, something I didn't want to see. Relief.

Piper doesn't know how to handle complicated situations like that, that's one thing I learned. I believe she wanted to be with me, and I do believe she loved me, but prison made it too complicated and I guess I thought in a way I was doing her, and myself, a favour by putting up a wall between us. By forcing her to quit. By making her make that choice.

I stayed mad at her. I kept the blame on her and maybe in some ways that's not fair. Maybe I caused this separation between us as much as she did, but she was the one who wanted to downsize our relationship when I needed her most. _She_ was the one who wanted only to 'be my friend' while I was going through hell.

She could have waited. Until the sentencing or until I'd at least gotten past the initial trauma that being imprisoned brings. She could have held on a little longer.

She wrote letters. Two. I ignored both of them and they stopped. I've still got them somewhere, I think.

I lost myself a little in there and for a lot of that I blamed her. Because I was still mad and because it was easier than dealing with my own shit. I came out four years earlier than my original sentenced date, something that can be attributed to overcrowding as much as good behaviour. I came out depressed, with mild PTSD and a hate for her still brooding. I guess it's a testament to how much I loved her that I carried that hate around with me for so long. Bu then again, there's nothing much else to do in prison other than brood over the past. Over mistakes made and things that could have been done better.

It took a while for me to get back on my feet when I got out. Going back to the drug trade was tempting and the offers were there, but I'd gotten a taste of what can happen if you get caught and I was terrified of letting that happen again. I'd gotten lucky this time, next time I could be facing twenty years or more. I couldn't risk that.

Finding work was tough – no one wants to hire a criminal and I had no idea what I wanted to do. Drug trafficking had been the only skill I thought I possessed and realising that was a little disheartening. Eventually, after confessing my problems at the bar I often frequented, the owner hired me there. Something to help get me on my feet, she said.

I enjoyed working behind that bar, but I knew it wasn't where I wanted to stay. I'd rather be on the other side drinking the beer with Nicky and the gang than pouring it. It happened by luck that I eventually ended up where I am now; in the tattoo parlour. I'd only visited to see about getting some new ink done and saw by chance that they were hiring. When I asked about the job I hadn't really expected them to take me on, but they saw past the criminal record and for whatever reason they hired me. Two years on I practically run the place. Turns out I have a knack for managing a business. I've even started to learn how to use the tattoo gun and I'm pretty good at it. I can't draw for shit but I'm getting good with the calligraphy stuff.

It's in that tattoo parlour that I met Megan. I couldn't believe my eyes when she walked through the door. Not since I'd first met Piper had anyone made my heart rattle the way she did. Denim shorts and a cropped top showing off her milky white skin. Her long auburn hair in waves down her back. Usually the girls that come in here and are that hot want something 'trendy'. A tattoo that's as uninspiring to look at as it is to ink, but not this girl. She wanted a dragon whose tail wrapped around the top of her thigh and whose body climbed up her hips and side of her ribcage. She was there on and off for weeks getting it finished and that's how we became friends. That's how we got to know each other and that's how we ended up falling in love.

Megan helped me forget Piper. Megan showed me how easy love could and _should_ be.

So why am I up this late still thinking of Piper and that fucking phone call? Why am I allowing her to affect me this way again? What is it about her that always pulls me in?

I attempt to force her out of my mind and turn to face Megan. She's fast asleep again, the gentle rhythm of her breathing tells me so. Megan loves me, and I love her. I won't say our relationship is perfect but she makes me happy and I can't let Piper's sudden appearance ruin that.

It doesn't stop me from wondering about her, though. Wondering how her life turned out. Wondering if I shouldn't have been so harsh but at the same time being glad I was.

There are so many things I never got the chance to say to her. Piper doesn't know the experience I had and how her actions affected me, and maybe she should. Maybe she should be forced to face the consequences of what happened between us. It might serve as some sort of closure not only for myself, but for her, too.

We never got to end things properly. We never got the chance to say what we both needed to say. Too stubborn and with an electric fence in the way.

Maybe now we have that chance. To air it all out and let it all go.

The next day, after a broken, uneasy sleep, I woke up to a text from her. Her number still not saved in my phone but somehow already etched into my memory.

 _I shouldn't have called last night. I'm sorry._

I debated over that text for the rest of the day. Weighing up the responses I could give or if it were best to just ignore it. Let it go. Put her in the past again.

But something told me doing that would only lead to more uneasy nights. Part of me wants to know what she has to say for herself. Part of me wants to say all the things I never got to say to her.

 _No, you shouldn't have._ I replied, bitterly. Letting her know my replying doesn't equal forgiveness and I left it like that for a while, before eventually sending another. _If you want, we can talk. We can meet somewhere. I think we both have things we need to say._

I sent it knowing it could be a huge mistake. Most people would say I shouldn't give her the time of day and I would agree. But I knew deep down I wasn't innocent in all of this and I thought – uncharacteristically naively – that maybe we could talk and it could be beneficial. Maybe we could finally put everything we felt out there, and move on from our past completely.


	17. Chapter 17

When I was younger I hated the subway. The smell, the noise and being surrounded by strangers… I hated it all. I remember throwing fits on the occasions that my mom or dad would make me go on it. I would beg them to drive instead so I could sit in the back in the comfortable seats, without any strangers around me and watch a movie on the little screen on the back of the headrest.

Now, it's the complete opposite. The thought of driving in the city gives me a stomach ache. I can see now why my mom and dad sometimes avoided it. The traffic, the road rage and the roar of car horns. None of it appeals to me anymore.

That smell in the subway is still there and still slightly revolting, but I've gotten used to it, and I find I actually quite like the noise. The buzz of people talking and laughing, the hollow bash of the steel drums the Caribbean man is playing for tips that echoes its way down the carriage. I like it. I like sitting amongst the life, the veins of New York City. Where all cultures meet and sit together for a small portion of their day.

I enjoy watching the people, it helps me to relax, to lose my mind in something else. Equally, when I need to, the hum of outside noise helps me think. Today, it helps me prepare for what's to come. Today, the subway is like a haven. A point where I can collect my thoughts and figure out what the fuck I'm going to do when I get off. When I take that short walk to the café Alex and I agreed to meet in.

This wasn't ever a meeting I thought we'd have. When I'd called her in my drunken stupor I hadn't really expected that she'd answer, and not in my wildest imagination had I ever thought she'd want to meet me.

I thought she hated me.

No, she _does_ hate me. I could tell in the way she spat her words to me on the phone and in the dry way we'd arranged this meeting.

In fact, I'm not entirely sure she does _want_ to meet me. This, for her, is probably something more of a… well, I don't really know. Curiosity, maybe. Or necessity. Perhaps this was her one last chance to tell me what she thought of me, how she despised me for what I'd done. One last chance to tell me what an insensitive ass I had been.

Which is true, I guess, but if she was going to give me shit for what had happened then she better be prepared to get some of it back. My actions were a direct result of hers. If she hadn't been a criminal, then she wouldn't have gone to prison. None of this would have happened in the first place.

… but if she hadn't been a criminal would I have felt the same way about her? Even I could admit her rebellious lifestyle was part of her appeal…

If she hadn't told me to leave then maybe I wouldn't have.

… but what if she hadn't really meant it. What if I should have fought harder for her…

The subway lurched to a stop and, among the bustle of people, I reluctantly made my way out.

The walk to the café, that on a regular day shouldn't have taken more than five minutes, took much longer today and that wasn't an accident. My steps I dragged out, I took unnecessary turns and turned back on myself more than once. It was as if my brain and my body were fighting each other over what to do.

Stay or go… stay or go. Be brave. Face her and face up to my mistakes. Be a coward and run. Drag up the past or leave it there to fester.

On a whim, on a sudden bout of courage, I breathed in deeply, held my head up high, pulled my shoulders back and walked purposefully – _confidently_ , towards the little café on the corner. My heels clip-clopping on the sidewalk in time with the thump of my heart against my chest.

I walked through the door without a glance through the windows. Locking eyes with Alex off guard might cause me to fumble, to miss a step and fall on my face. I'd already made myself out to look like a silly, insecure little girl when I called her in the middle of the night, I needed to show her that was only a blip in who I was now. The confident, successful, happy and self-assured Piper is who I needed to show her.

Whether that was all true or not was another matter altogether. Not to be dealt with right now.

I pushed the door open and carefully glanced over the scattering of people already eating. The café was a quaint little place, one I've never been to before but the type that had that unique trait of making you feel at ease right away with its soft colouring and homely décor.

"There's a free table just over here for you, miss," a cheerful young woman, no older than twenty with her off-blonde hair tied up in a bun, said, and it was just then that I spotted Alex behind her sitting at a table near the back. She'd already seen me, and when our eyes met she was the first to avert them.

"Miss?"

"Oh, sorry," I said to the waitress now looking at me with slightly furrowed brow of concern and confusion at this strange silent woman just standing in the middle of her café. "I don't need a table I'm meeting someone." I smiled warmly at her as I looked back in Alex's direction. "Thank you."

"Hey," Alex said when I reached her table, and it struck me instantly how the sound of her voice travelled through me, like that warmth you feel from your first sip of wine.

Seems some things never change.

"Hi." I gave her a small, almost shy smile that was barely returned as I sat down, and I knew then that Alex wasn't in the mood for fucking around. She was here because I had called her, because I had brought all of this up and she'd probably rather be anywhere else.

The air was suddenly tight and thick, I shifted awkwardly and stiff in my seat, my bag clutched tightly on my lap, unable to look her directly in the eye.

It was sort of strange how much she hadn't changed. Those glasses, that hair. The perfect eyeliner and the flawless cream skin. The black tank top with a dark purple and black checked flannel over it and a single, long silver necklace that stopped conveniently between her breasts. She could have been picked up from six years ago and placed in this spot there was that little difference. Possibly a few more tattoos creeping out under the upturned arm of her shirt were about all that had changed. A few more lines around the eyes maybe, too.

It was a severe contrast to how much I had changed. My hair was shorter, I wore different clothes. I carried myself differently. My voice was more confident and clear. I wasn't a silly young girl anymore.

But that was what was supposed to happen wasn't it? People were supposed to grow and change and leave the people they used to be behind. I've grown up.

"I already ordered a coffee…" Alex said, obviously trying to fill the silent, awkward void between us. "Wasn't sure what you would want so I didn't-"

"That's okay, I'll get her when she comes back… So…" I said, urging myself to relax while wishing that a black hole would open up and swallow me. "This is… weird."

"Yup." Alex seemed unphased by the same awkwardness that was consuming me. As if she knew it'd be like this and enjoyed watching me squirm. Maybe that's why she'd agreed to this in the first place. She really hadn't changed.

"How have you been?" I offered, timidly.

She sighed and ran a frustrated hand through her hair and I cursed inwardly at the shot of electricity that whooshed through me at watching that luscious dark hair bounce and fall back down to her shoulders. "No, Piper. Small talk?" She looked at me as if I were crazy and scoffed, "Don't do that. That's not what we're here for."

"I'm just being polite, Alex, no need to throw it back in my face."

"Don't you think we're past the point of fucking politeness?"

Luckily, the same waitress who'd greeted me at the door came over to our table, breaking our first fight before it happened and handed Alex the coffee she'd ordered. Before she walked off I asked for one too.

"You're the one that wanted this, Piper. You're the one that called me and decided to bring all this shit up so you're dead fucking wrong if you think I'm gonna make this easy for you."

I exhaled and placed my purse on the table, a little annoyed by how difficult she was being but at the same time not surprised by it. "Fine. I genuinely thought we might be able to be civil about this whole thing and have a decent conversation but apparently I was wrong."

"Civil? You want me to be _civil_ to you? Are you serious? You fucking abandoned me, Piper. I don't owe you fucking anything."

I'd forgotten how infuriating she could be. She was getting it all so wrong.

" _Abandoned_ you?" Noting how loud I replied, I looked around at the few diners near us and lowered my voice. "You told me to go, Alex. That's _not_ abandonment. You told me you didn't want to see me again."

"Don't pretend you weren't gonna do it anyway. Don't you think I noticed the way you'd changed?"

"Of course I changed!" I was bordering on hysterical. I could feel it and had to use all my strength to calm myself down. "You were in prison, Alex, how was I supposed to stay the same person while dealing with that?"

"So it's all my fault? Is _that_ what you're saying?"

"Well it's not _my_ fault you got sent to prison, is it?"

Once again the perky waitress arrived at our table, and it was only that which reminded me we were still in the petit café, with people surrounding us, more than likely able to hear every word we were saying.

My cheeks were suddenly warm, feeling that burn of other people's eyes on us as I thanked the waitress for my coffee.

"I can't believe you." Alex said, her voice that much quieter now. She too must have realised we were becoming too loud for a place this small. "I can't believe I honestly thought you might take some fucking responsibility for what happened between us."

She looked genuinely disappointed, and it was mostly that which stabbed at my heart.

"It's not that I'm not taking responsibility for my part in this," I said as I stirred my coffee, "I'm just saying that you were at fault too."

"Don't you think I know that? I'm well aware that being sent down was the catalyst for all this shit." She sat back, crossed her arms and looked away briefly before hitting me with a cold stare that nearly made me shudder. She really did hate me. "At least I am able to step up and admit to my mistakes. I _know_ I fucked up. I know that I put myself in the position to be sent to prison. I can take responsibility for that. I can't put my situation on anyone else and I know- _I know_ that I told you to leave, but you… you _listened_. You took what I said and you used that as an excuse to get out of a situation you weren't happy with. You were _relieved_ ," she said with an incredulous kind of laugh, "You were fucking relieved I could see it in your eyes. And I can't even blame you! I get that you weren't particularly hyped for a future with a prisoner for a girlfriend, but you could have still been my friend. You could have stuck around to see me through some of the worst moments of my life instead of using it as an excuse to get as far away from me as possible."

Alex stopped to take a calculated breath, like she was trying her hardest not to let the anger she was feeling consume her.

"But I should have known. I should have known that you'd run, because that's just you, isn't it? You run when things get difficult."

The accusation hurt mostly because it was true. When she'd been taken away I had been scared, and when she had told me to leave, I _had_ been relieved because it made everything easier. But I hadn't abandoned her.

"I wrote you." I said, knowing it sounded a bit feeble but it was all I could cling to.

"Yeah," she sighed and sat up, but instead of considering my rebuttal she only looked more disappointed. "You did. You know what, this is stupid." She took out some money from her pocket, left it on the table and said, "We're getting nowhere. Good luck to you, Piper. Don't call me again."

She accidentally brushed my arm as she walked past me and at the burst of electricity that shot through me I knew I couldn't let that be it. Even after all this time she still made my insides quiver and I couldn't let this be the last conversation we shared.

"Wait, Alex _. Wait_." I said as I reached her, just as she was walking out the door.

"Don't, okay? I'm done." She said as she continued to walk away. "If you're not gonna own up to your shit then I'm not gonna sit around here and listen to you."

"I know. You're right. Please, Alex, please." I reached out to her in the middle of the street, daring only to gently tug at her elbow to entice her to stay and listen. "I fucked up, okay. I could have done more. I shouldn't have gone. But you're right – I was scared. Scared of being without you and scared of being with you and when you told me to go it was easier to tell myself you didn't want me. It was easier to make that choice. I was a coward, but I've changed. I'm different now. I've grown up."

"Have you? When we were together you told me you didn't want the life your parents wanted you to have. You told me that being with me opened up this whole side to you that you never knew existed. Showed you a life you never thought you could have and look at you! I can tell just by looking at you and your freshly cut and dyed hair and your expensive clothes that you went right back into that life you said you didn't want. I'm willing to bet that the man that put that ring on your finger – yes the _man_ , because I have absolutely no doubt that after me you put your gay side _literally_ to the side and put it down as a 'phase' – I bet that man is the same guy you were with when we were together, or else someone a hell of a lot like him. Some lawyer or writer or wall street jackass who your parents absolutely adore but who you are becoming increasingly bored of because he is exactly _that_ – boring. Am I right?"

I shuffled awkwardly in my spot and that was all the answer she needed.

"Obviously I'm right, because otherwise you wouldn't have called me. The one person who put some fucking excitement into your life." She shrugged at me, "You picked that side, you chose to follow that yuppie life because it was easier than truly admitting to who you are and owning it. You haven't changed, Pipes, and only now are you starting to realise that maybe you fucked up."

"That's not true. I'm happy."

"No, you're not." She answered with a half laugh, "If you were you wouldn't be here. If you were you would have accepted what happened between us and moved on. Instead you look back on it and you wonder what your life might have been like if you'd stuck around. Don't you?"

I didn't even know what to say.

"Look, it's hard," she continued when I hadn't spoken. "I get it. It's not easy to admit to everyone that you're not who they want you to be and I can't hate you for that, but I can hate you for giving up on me and I did. I hated you for making me fall in love with you. I hated you because I opened up to you when that is not something I do. I gave myself to you and I fell massively in love with you and you couldn't come through for me.

"I hated you for doing that to me and now I see that you didn't even have the guts to carry on your life the way you should have. You fucked both of us over. The difference is that at least I'm happy now. And maybe I don't hate you quite as much as I used to, but I'm disappointed in everything you turned out to be. You have changed, but not for the better. The girl I knew had a spark. The girl I knew wanted adventure, to leave the rich white girl life behind and find some real thrill. To travel the world and do something exciting… This girl," she gestured at me and I felt self-conscious – not because of the passers by starting to look and wonder at us, but because I felt like she was opening me up and pointing out all the flaws I knew I had but didn't want to see. "I don't know her, and I don't want to."

"I loved you, too." I said as she started to turn and walk away, but my voice was so cracked as it broke through the lump in my throat that it was barely audible.

"What?"

"I loved you, too." I repeated a little louder, a little clearer, storming towards her, fighting the tear that was brimming my eye. "And you broke my heart, too. You broke it by being put in that place. I was so close to breaking free of all of this and then you were taken away and I was lost… You abandoned me too." I didn't realise I was shouting but I was. I didn't realise how close I was to her. All I knew was the rushing in my chest and the heat in my face and the tears that stung my eyes.

For a second I thought I'd broken through. I thought I saw something in those green eyes change. Soften. I thought she might step towards me accept my apology while I accepted hers. I thought she might even take me in her arms. Hold me, let me place my head in the crook of her neck. Like she used to.

But then that fleeting softness hardened again and I knew none of that would happen. Something broke inside as she uttered her parting words.

"Well I guess we're even."


	18. Chapter 18

_If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?_

 _If our love is insanity, why are you my clarity?_

 _\- Foxes, Clarity._

Megan didn't know about Piper. She knew I was dating someone when I was arrested – and she knew why I was arrested, too. We didn't keep much from each other, but for some reason I'd skirted so much of my relationship with Piper.

I don't know why, and I'm not about to get into some fucking Dr. Phil shit for why that is. I just know that talking about her brought on two very powerful emotions. Absolute hatred and the kind of ache in my heart that made it difficult to breathe. I despised her, but god dammit I missed her, so talking about her was near impossible without feeling both pissed off and melancholy.

Megan knew I'd been seeing someone when all the shit went down but she had no idea how strong my feelings were for her or how badly she'd fucked me over.

Despite this omission, Megan knew me pretty well. She might not know everything about me, but she knew the important stuff. She understood me in a way I've never been understood before. So I guess it should be no surprise that as soon as I got back to our apartment from my meeting with Piper, she knew something was up. I told her I'd met an old friend and that was all. I was fine. I was. She didn't believe me. Told me I was being 'evasive' and 'sketchy'. Eventually she let it go but ever since then there's been something strange between us. I catch her looking at me sometimes like she's trying to figure out who I am. Like she doesn't know me, which is bullshit because of everyone in my life she knows me best. Most of me, anyway.

"There's something going on with you." She told me out of the blue one day as we were getting ready to go out. She was fixing her long auburn hair with a pair straightening tongs while I flicked through my clothes trying to decide what to wear.

The abrupt way she said it told me she'd been brewing over saying it for a while. I knew her just as well as she knew me, and Megan always thought over things for way too long. Kept what she really wanted to say inside until it couldn't be kept in anymore.

"There is?" I said lightly, looking at her curiously from over my shoulder. Trying to lighten the mood. Trying to stop the conversation from getting too serious.

Evasive.

"Don't do that. You know there has been." The straighteners were placed back on the dressing table as she swivelled in her chair to face me. The tail of her dragon tattoo peeked out from under her shorts. "Tell me what it is."

"I don't know what to tell you, babe." I shrugged, turned back to the wardrobe and picked a top from the hanging collection, pretended to consider wearing it.

"I'm not a fucking idiot, Alex." She sounded pissed off. Not angry though, just fed up. "I know what you're trying to do."

"Oh yeah? Enlighten me, because I have no idea what the fuck is going on right now." There was an edge to my voice now. Getting pissed because I knew she wasn't going to let it go until I told her the truth, and that I would have to tell her just that because she can always tell when I'm lying.

"You're keeping something from me. I know you're going to deny it and there's not much I can do about that, it's not like I have any proof or whatever, but I have this _feeling_ and my feelings are usually right."

"I don't know what to tell you, Meg."

"Who did you meet last week?"

"Really? _That's_ what this is all about? Oh my God, this is pathetic." I stormed out of the bedroom.

Sketchy.

She followed me, anger burning her cheeks, but she still wasn't yelling. Her calmness counteracted how annoyed I was getting which just made me look even worse. "Yeah, that's what this is all about, because any time I try to bring it up you get all fucking weird about it."

"I'm not getting weird about it, I'm just pissed off that I've told you I was meeting a friend and you won't let it go."

"What friend?"

"I told you."

"No, you didn't. And see that's what gets me, because all of your friends are my friends, and all your friends from before you met me you don't talk to anymore because they all eventually bailed on you when you went down. Those were _your_ words. So, either you were lying when you told me that or you don't want to tell me who you met for some other reason and I wanna know which it is."

I was backed into a corner. Everything she had said was right. I either had to tell her the truth or think of something plausible real quick.

"You know this paranoid shit really doesn't suit you." I said, buying some time. Stalling while I figured out what the fuck to do.

"Don't you dare turn this around on me. you're being so fucking off about it that I know I'm right. So tell me now or I swear to god I am walking out that door."

That's when, strangely, I heard my mom's voice in my head. "Face your shit," she said in that thick New York accent, "because ain't nobody else gonna do it for you."

The first time she told me that I'd come home crying because those little bitches in middle school threw my cheap ass sneakers in the trash. She told me to stand up to them, show them that they can't mess with me like that, because that was the only way they were going to stop doing it. Something in the way she said it bolstered me up and the next day I went into school determined to make that little bitch pay. First chance I got, I punched her square in the nose and told her to leave me alone. The four months of detention was well worth it, because she never bothered me again, and I got a laugh every time I caught a glance at her slightly crooked nose.

I faced my shit, and ever since then I've done exactly that. I've never hidden who I was, I've never let anyone push me around. I've always been straight to the point. Direct and honest. No shit. I wasn't about to change that now.

A weight hit my chest at the memory of her, at the unexpected sound of her voice in my head. Fuck I missed her.

"It was Piper."

"Piper? Who the fuck-" A look of recognition swept over her puzzled face. "Your _ex_ , Piper?"

"Yeah."

"The one you were-"

"Seeing before I went down? Yeah. Her."

"Okay... Why?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Because she wanted to. Because _I_ wanted to. There was some shit we needed to air out. That's it."

"No. That's not it. It can't be, because that doesn't make sense. You told me there was barely anything between you two. You said you were basically nothing. What kind of shit would you need to air out with someone like that?"

"I guess we weren't nothing."

The fight that ensued was the biggest we'd had. I told her everything. The truth. Her calm exterior finally faded and she yelled, and I yelled back. She told me I'd been lying to her for years, I told her it wasn't a lie I'd just skipped over some parts and she said that was just as bad. She tried to say I still had feelings for her, I told her I probably did, but they weren't anything like what I feel for her.

There was always going to be feelings there between Piper and I. We had a connection that couldn't be ignored, but that didn't change the fact that we were so incredibly toxic for each other.

Megan stormed out and came back later that night while I was pretending to sleep, stinking of smoke and beer. We all have our crutches, and when shit gets difficult, Megan gets drunk and smokes a pack or two of cigarettes. She says it's her Irish background, I say it's from watching her mom do the same.

I couldn't sleep that night. The fight with Megan played on repeat in my head. For the first time in our relationship I'd really hurt her. Telling her how I'd felt about Piper had hurt her. I think she had this idea that she was the only one I'd ever had a deep connection with.

It'd hurt me telling her. I liked to push away everything I'd felt for her. It was easier that way.

And now I couldn't sleep because talking about it, spelling our relationship out like that had opened a door I thought I'd firmly closed. A door that had already been gently pushed ajar by meeting her.

I'd forgotten the things about her that had made me fall for her. I'd forgotten the spark we had. When she'd walked through that café door, nervous but trying to hide it, all sorts of memories came flooding back. She'd had that exact same look on her face when I'd taken her to meet my friends. I'd reassured her with a hand on her lower back and a whisper in her ear that everything was fine, they'd all love her, relax.

They didn't. Some of them did. Some of them thought she was annoying, couldn't understand why I liked her, and she was. She _was_ annoying, but I found it sort of… endearing. It kind of added to the attraction, just like how I'd forgotten how amusing it could be to wind her up. When she became all high pitched and nearly hysterical, I had to stop myself from smiling. It was adorable in a weird sort of way, watching her get to the point of freaking out but doing her best to stop herself.

When she smiled at me from across that table, a small sort of smile that I never returned, one that tried to mask how awkward she was, I remembered her real one. I remembered how it felt to make her laugh and how it felt to hear it. I remembered all the times we'd giggled like teenagers together, laughing until our cheeks hurt.

When she'd reached out for my elbow and I felt the tips of her fingers brush my skin, I remembered how soft her touch was. I remembered how it gave me goosebumps, how the gentle pad of her finger used to trace the lines on my palm as we fell asleep.

When we'd stood out on the street and she told me she'd loved me, it tugged at something. Something I hadn't buried nearly as deep as I thought I had. Hearing her say it made me want to hear it more and more.

I remembered there was a whole lot more to our relationship than how it ended and for a moment I forgot why it did.

I forced myself to remember that awful conversation in the visitation room. I made my heart remember the pain of her breaking it. I thought of how fast shit had spiralled afterwards. Of drowning it out with anti-depressants; of getting the news that my mom had died; of attending her funeral with a pair of prison guards flanking me; of getting caught up in prison gangs; of being beaten up, getting hooked on heroin and slowly losing my friends because who really wants to be friends with a prisoner?

All the way through it a hatred for Piper burned. I couldn't blame her for me being stuck here, but at least I could blame her for abandoning me, because maybe I wouldn't have spiralled quite as badly if she'd been by my side. I needed to blame someone.

I got through it eventually, I learned to let go of some of the hatred for my own well-being, but I still never could bring myself to think about how good it once was. How good she made me feel.

I forced myself to remember all the things I didn't like about her. Not just her leaving me, but the way she constantly tries to hide who she is. The way she always adheres to what society – and her parents – think she should be. The way she stayed with a man she was clearly not happy with. The way she hides the rebellious side of her under skinny grey jeans and an expensive tailored blazer. She can't decide what she wants. She always runs, and she _can_ be really fucking annoying.

She still looked good, though. Age had been kind to her. The shorter hair suited her better and so did the confidence. A confidence that I don't think was fully there yet, more like she was trying her best to show me what she wanted me to see, but it looked good on her anyway. It was sexy, but she'd always been sexy. She'd always had this way of making me weak at the knees that no-one had ever truly replicated. It wasn't just in her appearance, there was something else there that just couldn't be pin-pointed. That feeling that underneath this pretty blonde girl there was a kinky fox waiting to be unleashed.

I shuffled my body around to look at my sleeping girlfriend, and thought, with a sad sort of realisation, that even at our best, we'd never had that same spark that Piper and I had. She'd never made me as furious or as blindly passionate as Piper had.

When I'd told her earlier that what I felt for Piper wasn't anything like what I felt for her, I'd been telling the truth, but I don't think I quite realised in what sense.

I loved Megan, I truly did. The eight months we've spent together have been some of the best, but being with Piper was different, and maybe it always would be. Perhaps everyone had that one person that really brought them alive and maybe that person wasn't always the one you ended up with, because even though they bring out the best in you, they bring out the worst, too.

What is it they say? The flame that burns brightest burns half as long? Something like that. Maybe the love that burns brightest burns half as long too. Maybe passion like that, and love like that, just isn't sustainable and what I have with Megan is a more realistic expectation of what being in love should be.

Maybe I'll never really know.


	19. Chapter 19

Bravery. It's not a word often used to describe me, or something I often feel for that matter, but when I walked out of the apartment I shared with Larry, a suitcase in tow and my engagement ring left behind, twirling in his shaken hands, that's exactly how I felt.

Why should I feel brave? Well, life is funny like that. You don't realise you're scared of something until you have to face it, and it wasn't Larry I was scared of. It was life. Scared of living it the wrong way. Scared of not living it to its full potential. Scared of missing out on it. Scared of not being able to control it.

Life is unpredictable because at its very simplest form it's nothing more than one thing happening as a result of the thing before it. Other people can drastically change the path you're going down, skewing you off into another random direction and that, when I _really_ think about it, freaks me out more than anything else. The fact that you can never be fully in control of your own life, no matter how hard you try.

Sometimes I think if I hadn't taken that trip to Mexico with Polly – which, by the way, I nearly didn't – none of what has happened to me in the past seven years would have happened. Alex and I never would have met and if we had it would have been under completely different circumstances, and who knows what would have come of that.

If I had been brave enough to break it off with Larry all those years ago and fully pursue my relationship with Alex, I could have been a completely different person.

For the worse or for the better? I don't know, and I'll never know.

I might have convinced Alex to quit her criminal lifestyle. She might never have gone to prison. But who would I be? Would Polly and I still have built our business together had I been the girlfriend of a highly successful drug dealer? Unlikely. What motivation would I have to do such a thing if I was being flown all over the world, staying in five-star hotels and spending my days on white sand beaches next to crisp blue oceans.

It could have been that _I_ went to prison, simply for knowing who and what Alex was, and fuck knows what would have come of me then.

With a few simple changes, life could have been so different. If I hadn't left that drunken voicemail on Alex's phone I probably wouldn't be sitting on the porch of my parent's home, newly single and drowning my sorrows in a bottle of wine.

The look on mother's face when I showed up was priceless. I almost wish my brother had been there to share in the spectacular moment. She looked more devastated over the whole thing than I was.

And that's another funny thing, because even though we've been together for nearly a decade, I don't really feel much about it.

It feels kind of…. Like when a really sick person finally dies. Your great aunt or something, who'd been suffering with terminal cancer for years and years and everyone knew she was on deaths door but no-one knew when that day would come. When it happens it's sad, of course it is, but there's also that underlying feeling of relief that it's all over. Her pain and the waiting. You're not _happy_ about it, but you'd just sort of accepted a long time ago that it would happen.

That's what my break up with Larry was like. Although neither of us really admitted it, we both knew something was missing. We'd tried so hard for so long. Too hard, for too long. We'd been to couples counselling and all that bullshit. We thought, or at least I know _I_ thought, that we might eventually find that spark again, but we never did. We were good at putting on a show. All our friends and family thought we were the happiest couple they'd ever seen.

Funny, that.

Anyway, mom was horrified.

"But he was so _good_ for you, Piper!" She'd exclaimed once I'd told her everything.

Good. He was so _good_ for me, she'd said. I couldn't roll my eyes hard enough. Good in her eyes wasn't the same as good in mine. Good meant that he was stable, came from a wealthy family and was most likely not to fuck me over. I suppose that _was_ good. But he wasn't good in the way I wanted him to be. I'd grown out of his immature jokes. There was no excitement. No passion. Our relationship had become one of passivity, of the mundane, of sex on a Saturday night and grocery shopping together every Thursday.

I know that the meeting with Alex sparked this whole thing, but I didn't do it because I wanted to win her back. I did it because of the way she just _knew_ I was still with him, and because of the look she gave me when she realised she was right. It seemed almost pitiful. I was so predictable that a woman I haven't spoken to in years knew that Larry and I would still be together.

I did it because in that short half hour meeting with Alex I felt more emotion than I had in years with Larry, and that's the kind of passion I want from a relationship. Not necessarily with her, because she made it quite clear she never wants to see me again, but with _someone_. I wanted someone to look at me the way she looked at me.

But I needed to be alone for a while first. For too long I'd let my relationships define me. Let them change me and shape the kinds of decisions I made. I'd spent too long focusing on what other people might want or need from me to really figure out what I wanted, what _I_ needed.

It hit home something I'd sort of known for a long time already. I wasn't happy, not just in my relationship but in general, and I wasn't going to be until something changed. I'd lost that person I found when I met Alex, and I liked that person. Being with Larry had chipped away at parts of my personality, and that wasn't his fault, it was mine, for forcing myself to stay in a relationship I wasn't fully invested in. I wanted that person back, and I couldn't be her with him.

So that left me here. Sitting on my mom's porch with a cool glass of Sauvignon in my hand, single for the first time in way too long and without a clue what I was going to do next.

It was nearly terrifying, but I quite liked it. I was being brave.

It took a while to get comfortable being single. You get used to sleeping with someone beside you. You get used to having someone there that you can vent to, that you can discuss everything with. I missed having a body there beside me as I slept. I missed being kissed, and it was tempting at first to head out and replace Larry with someone else. Find a stranger to fill that bed for the night, a stranger to kiss me in the morning.

I didn't want to do that though. Temporary fixes don't really fix anything they just make the broken parts easier to ignore for a while.

I found my own apartment and got used to spending nights alone. Put all my focus into PoPi, the boutique toiletry business that Polly and I shared, and it begun to really take off. Before we knew it, our products were being sold in shops all over New York.

I started to write, too. Casually, nothing serious. At first it helped mostly just with getting out all the feelings of hurt, anger and betrayal still burning away inside. It was cathartic to take my feelings and make something out of them. Reliving and re-telling those anguished moments, albeit in a different setting, helped me in processing them properly and in that I finally forgave myself for all the mistakes I'd made and accepted that there were some things I just couldn't change. It was therapeutic.

On those pages I got to know myself again, and in doing so I realised I've hardly ever lived a life without deceit. My true self has so rarely been shown that even I lost her for a while. Or never really knew her at all.

I started dating again, armed with the intention of finally letting someone in. Let someone know me and love me for who I truly am, and in return I'd love them the same. Out of nothing more than habit, I guess, I started dating men. A few dinner dates, a few walks through central park and one or two ferry rides to Staten Island. The guys were cute, they were reasonably interesting and the sex was alright, too, but it was never really satisfying, and it was only then that I became truly honest with myself and considered the possibility of dating women.

I'd always put my relationship with Alex down as a one time thing. An anomaly. Told myself that I was straight, and Alex was just the exception, that I'd never feel like that for another woman – only her.

Maybe I was wrong, maybe I wasn't, but I'd never know unless I tried and so I started going out in a different part of town. Visiting bars that I wasn't entirely comfortable in at first but in time grew to love. I met some of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in those bars and slept with a few of them too.

It was like a whole new Piper was being unleashed and yet I didn't feel all that different. Just… truer. I could see more of the beauty of life, and it was as I was walking to the subway from the office of PoPi's newest potential supplier, I realised I wanted to mark the occasion of it. To remember this turning point in my life with some ink on my skin. The little infinity symbol I had was still the only mark I'd made on it and it was getting lonely.

A place amusingly named 'Tat's All Folks', with a tatted-up bunny that looked so alike to Bugs Bunny I was actually surprised the placed hadn't been sued for plagiarism, caught my eye and with a whim of the kind of spontaneity I'd lacked so much in my life I bravely walked inside.

 **Alex**

I heard her voice clearly over the buzz of the tattoo needle in my hand. This wasn't a big place – there was only two tattooing stations just off the reception area. The reception area was basically just a small sofa, a reception desk, a glass cabinet showing off various types of piercing accessories for sale and a small bookshelf with books of all sorts of different tattoo styles, ideas and pictures of previous tattoos done in the shop.

She spoke lightly and brightly, telling Jackson on the desk that she wanted a tattoo.

"Oh yeah?" Jackson replied, and I could distinctly hear the amusement in his voice. He always found it funny when people who clearly didn't frequent tattoo places showed up. He thrived off the confusion and naivety in them. "What kinda tattoo you after?"

"Am I done?"

That voice had taken me away from the client I had on the table in front of me. "Sorry, yeah, almost. Just gotta clean you up."

I forced myself to stop listening to the voice just around the corner, because it probably wasn't who I thought it was anyway, but the walls in this place are thin, so while I was wrapping my clients arm in cling film I could clearly hear Jackson ask the woman if she'd found something she liked yet. He must have given her one of the many design books to look through.

"I think so, I quite like this. Can I get it done today?"

"Ah, afraid not. You'll have to book an appointment."

"But it says you close at six and it's only five fifteen."

"I know." I could hear the amusement in Jacksons voice again, "But we don't do walk-ins here. Besides, that tattoo will take more than half an hour to do and not only is the only tattoo artist here today still with another appointment, but she also only does script. Sorry, but you'll need to book an appointment with another tattoo artist."

"Well that seems counterintuitive, having a tattoo artist that can only do writing."

"Yeah, well, she's the boss she can do what she likes. If you want I'm free Saturday after four, I can do it for you then?"

"No Jackson, it's okay. I got it."

The surprise on Piper's face was priceless as I stepped out of the studio, my client two steps behind me, and I was just as surprised by the jolt of electricity I felt at having her eyes on mine.

"Alex?" She said, but I only gave her a smile before turning back to my client. I showed her my work on her side once more, Italian script written in classic cursive vertically down her ribcage, helped her carefully roll her t-shirt over it and then took her money. All with that familiar thrill of a feeling of having Piper's eyes on me the whole time.

It was weird how most of the anger I'd felt at her the last time we met had gone. It was weird to me that I didn't want to tell her to go, that in all honesty I was happy to see her. There was still things I disliked her for, but I was tired of carrying that around with me. It was time to move on from it.

She looked different. Not completely, just something in the way he carried herself. More confident maybe. Brighter. It tugged at something deep. She always _had_ been my weakness and right now, she was making me weak. Piper always looked good but today she looked better. I actually felt surprisingly nervous.

"You know each other?" Jackson asked when I had said good-bye to my customer.

I gave her a smirk of a smile, fixed my glasses that didn't need fixed and said, "You could say that, yeah."

"Oh. Okay." He still sounded surprised. I guess by looking at us you wouldn't really think two people as different as Piper and I would ever get the chance to know each other. Especially since she was dressed like a corporate in her tailored maroon pant suit and expensive heels.

"You head on home, Jack, I'll do this one."

"But I don't think you can, boss. This tattoo isn't script."

"I know, but Piper doesn't mind being my guinea pig, does she?" I knew I was being flirty, I could feel it but I couldn't help it.

It took her a second to answer. I was sure she was wondering if this was all real. Wondering if me offering to do her tattoo was just another step in getting her back by making a complete mess of it. I was also sure that I'd flustered her a little. Her cheeks were almost as red as her suit.

"I.. I guess not?"

"Good." I smiled at her for another lingering moment and then glanced down at the page Jackson had open on the table of the type of tattoo Piper wanted. "A fish? You're going for a fish?"


	20. Chapter 20

The man she called Jackson left about five minutes later and then it was just the two of us.

Alex and I. Alone in a tattoo parlour. A surprising turn of events, to say the least.

And she wasn't rude to me. She didn't ignore me. She didn't turn the other way as soon as she saw me. She was being… nice. She actually seemed – dare I say it – sort of _pleased_ to see me. Looking at the way our previous meet went, this was something of a shock.

It had been months ago, that meeting in that petit café. Quite a few months, actually. Eight or possibly nine. It felt like a lifetime ago and yet, at the same time, it felt like just yesterday.

I'd like to think I've grown a bit since we last met. I know myself better, and maybe that's why it seems like so long ago, but in all that has changed, standing opposite Alex makes me feel the exact same way it always has. Those butterflies are still there. I'm excited, and nervous. A little intimidated and yet so comfortable. A melting pot, a juxtaposition of emotions that shouldn't be felt all at once.

"So, you're doing tattoo's now?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"Well I couldn't keep shipping heroin so… yeah."

"It's funny, I never really pictured you ever getting a real job but this seems… oddly fitting."

"Thanks," she said with a laugh, "I think? I mean honestly I never really pictured myself having a real job either so.." she shrugged and then nodded behind her, to the door she came out of a short while ago. "Come on through and I'll draw this up for you."

Alex opened the door and motioned to the chair for me to sit on, then left the room briefly to lock the front door to the store.

When she came back in she sat down at the slanted sketching table by the wall and begun to draw up the little fish design I'd picked out, making some slight adjustments along the way. I could tell that she was concentrating hard on what she was doing and, remembering what Jackson had said before about Alex only usually having done written work in the past, I decided to keep conversation to a minimum. I didn't want to distract her, this design was going on my body after all.

The silence was only a little awkward, punctuated occasionally by Alex asking if I was happy with how her sketch was going. It actually surprised me how well she could draw. I took the time in between to make myself comfortable. I put my blazer and purse in the corner of the room and perused the pictures on the wall of previous work done in this very room.

After some time, Alex asked, "Where is this little fish going?"

"I'm not sure," I replied, realising for the first time I hadn't actually thought about it. "where do you think I should put it?"

It amazed me just how much weight her opinion still held to me, and I think it amused her by the small smile she gave me.

"It's not my body it has to go on, Pipes. This choice is all yours."

My heart pumped a little harder, whether because of the sudden decision I had to make or the sound of her calling me 'Pipes' again I couldn't be sure.

"On my neck, I think."

"Your neck?" She laughed, "How very gangsta of you."

"Shut up, not like the side of my neck. At the back."

She chuckled again and then said, "Okay, tie your hair up, sit here and I'll transfer this." I did as she asked, straddling the padded chair with my stomach pressed against its back, my head resting over the edge of it to expose more of my neck, shivering upon Alex's cold touch to my warm skin. A good kind of shiver. The kind I wanted again.

"So, what is this for, then?" Alex asked eventually. "Why the little fish?"

The way she kept referring to my tattoo as the 'little fish' felt slightly mocking and I have no doubt that that was exactly what she wanted to convey but I didn't care. It was the same kind of mocking she gave me for my infinity symbol, for my Barbie blonde hair, and for what she used to refer to as my 'whiny-ness'. It was the kind of mocking that wasn't meant to hurt, it was meant to tease. It was meant to wind me up in the most playful kind of way.

"There's not any real reason behind it being a fish, no. I just saw it in the book and thought it looked pretty."

"Wow. So deep."

I rolled my eyes at her and would have threw a hand out to hit her, but I was painfully aware she had access to a rather large needle.

"Shut up. All I really wanted was something beautiful to put on my body. Something to remind me of all the kinds of beauty that exist in this world. I think everyone needs that sometimes."

Alex went quiet for a moment while she rubbed the transfer hard into the back of my neck. "Hmm," she hummed, "seems a bit silly then that you would want it where you can't see it."

"I guess... but that doesn't really matter. I'll know it's there."

Alex made an agreeing sort of noise and then carefully pulled the paper transfer off the back of my neck.

"Make sure you do my little fish justice now." I said while she pottered around the room, collecting everything she'd need on a little cart before pulling a chair up beside me and stretching some tight latex gloves over her hands.

"I'll do my very best."

I should have been nervous. If it had been anyone else I probably would have been. There was every chance that she could completely fuck this up, she and her friend Jackson had made it clear this wasn't the kind of work she usually did, but I didn't really care. If she did it would only add to the story behind it.

Gently but firmly she pushed my head further forward to get better access to my neck and a moment later I heard the unmistakeable buzz of the pulsating needle and then a sharp sting.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hissed between my teeth in pain. I'd forgotten how sore this could be and the pain didn't relent as the minutes passed. Unwilling to let Alex know just how much it hurt (she'd only joke about me being weak), I grabbed the side of the leather chair instead, clenching my fist into it as if I were hanging from my cliff and that chair was the only thing stopping me.

It was quiet. Too quiet. I knew it was because Alex was concentrating on what she was doing but I needed something to take my mind off the needle gun on my neck.

"This is kind of crazy, huh?" I said, looking at her through the large mirror on the wall in front of me.

"Getting a fish tattoo? I wouldn't say it's crazy but-"

"Not that," I said with a strained laugh, "although I reserve the right to say that getting a tattoo on my neck is at least a little bit crazy. Like you said, I'm totally gangsta now."

Alex chuckled a little at that and it made my heart float. Suddenly I was glad she wasn't facing me. I was sure I was blushing like crazy.

"What I mean is its crazy how we always end up crossing paths."

"Yeah, I guess."

"I mean like, of all the tattoo places in New York I could end up in, I walk into the one that you work in. It's weird."

There was a silence that almost seemed too long before she said. "New York isn't that big, really. Weirder things have happened." I hissed in pain as the gun scraped over the bone in my neck and then a moment later the pressure was relieved. Alex wiped the skin she'd just went over and shuffled her chair a little closer. The arm of the hand that held the tattoo gun lay across my back while her free hand gripped my shoulder.

I tried my best not to think of how close her body was to mine. I tried not to think about how this was the closest we'd been in years and of how good it felt. How natural to have her so near me that I could just about hear each breath she took. I tried not to look into the mirror and see the focus on her face that I couldn't help but find attractive, or the waves of hair that fell down by her shoulders as she worked.

"Can I ask _you_ something?"

"Ask away," I said, noting how the pain in my neck was starting to subside and turn into more of a dull ache.

"Why'd you decide to do this?"

"I told you."

"I know. But people don't just decide to do shit like this out of the blue. Well, people like _me_ do. People like _you_ don't. Unless you're having a mid-life crisis or something."

"Hey! I'm not that old."

She laughed again. That glorious sound, like dark chocolate. Smooth and deep, just like her voice. "Then why?"

I shrugged a little but Alex pushed it down. "if you don't want this to slip you need to stay still."

"Sorry," I said and then after some thought added, "I'm embracing a new me."

"Oh god." I could see her roll her eyes without even looking at her.

"More like.. the old me, actually. The me I never got to be."

Alex didn't say anything and I guessed she was confused. Or maybe she wasn't. either way I decided to clarify.

"I broke up with him."

"Who? Larry?"

"Yeah."

The buzzing needle stopped. "Really? Wow… What made you do it?"

I was about to shrug again but stopped myself. "I was tired of settling for something I didn't really want."

"Oh..." she said, so softly I almost never heard it. The silence was thick for a few moments before Alex seemed to snap out of it and switch the gun back on. "Well... good for you. It's about time."

"Yeah… I'm embracing the single life for a while."

"And how is that going for you?" she asked lightly, as if it amused her.

"Great... at first. Gets a bit lonely sometimes." Alex hummed in agreement and then I asked a question I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer to. "What about you? Are you seeing anyone?"

"I am." She said and my heart sunk. Which was stupid because nothing was about to happen here anyway. What was between us is gone. Left firmly in the past. It didn't matter that all of my senses were telling me the past was exactly where I didn't want our relationship to stay.

Too much time had passed. There was too much baggage. We'd hurt each other enough.

"Her name's Megan. We've been together nearly two years. She's… really great."

I smiled, a sad sort of smile, because although I was selfishly disappointed to hear it, I was glad of her happiness.

"Good. I'm happy for you."

"Thanks," she said, and I pictured them together. I didn't know her, had no idea what she looked like, but I knew she'd be pretty. I wondered if their relationship was easier than ours had been. I wondered if she made her happier than I had and then scolded myself for thinking such a thing. Of course she made did. Their time together probably wasn't nearly as complicated as ours had been.

Besides, Alex did seem happier now. There was an ease to her character that hadn't been there before. She wasn't throwing me out of the place for a start. The hate had gone and although I knew that she and Megan had obviously been together the last time we had met up and I'd felt her wrath, I also couldn't help but put the reason behind her attitude towards me now down to this girl. Maybe Alex had gone home to her that day, told her all about me and our conversation and sucked the hate from her. Made her see that I was nothing more than a blip in her past and someone it wasn't worth hating anymore.

I wished that wasn't true. I'd rather she hated me than thought of me passively. At least then she felt _something_.

But that was selfish, too, and I did enjoy being around her again so maybe passivity wasn't so bad.

I enjoyed it _too_ much. Being around her. I enjoyed having her near me and touching me even in this most innocent of circumstance.

As the silence in the room grew with nothing but the buzz of the needle gun to break it up, I couldn't help but become intensely more aware of how close we were, of the places her hand rested on my back and on my neck. The firmness in the way she pushed the skin on my neck. Hard, but not so hard that it hurt. She always had known how to skirt that boundary, and before I knew it I was wondering if she and Megan were as good in the bedroom as we had been, because for all the faults we had as a couple, that wasn't one of them. I sure as hell hadn't found anyone that made me feel as good as she had. Male or female.

I knew I shouldn't be thinking it, but the more I tried to push it from my mind the more it forced itself on me. All of a sudden the stabbing in my neck hurt less and less as my focus shifted to the whereabouts of Alex's body. The knee that was a fraction away from touching my thigh. The tickle of her hair as she tilted her head to the side and it swayed against my arm. The slight pressure on the middle of my back that I was almost too sure was her bosom pressing against me.

"Alex?"

"Hm?"

"Why don't you hate me anymore?"

I looked at her through the mirror and after a second she looked back. The buzzing stopped and I held my breath as I awaited her reply.

"I don't think I ever really did."

Those words flooded my veins with a warmth that travelled slowly at first before consuming my whole body. A shiver went down my back. My cheeks and neck flushed. Pleasure, relief, joy, all mixed up together.

In the reflection Alex held my gaze and over the thumping in my chest I wondered what she was thinking. If she was feeling what I was. The tension. The way it was all those years go as if no time had passed.

"This is almost finished," she said, her tone low and soft and I knew then that she was feeling it too. I could hear it. "Just a few finishing touches and you'll be good to go."

But I didn't want to go.

She touched my shoulder, caressed it with her thumb for a moment and then her eyes were back on my neck. I watched her, willing those red lips to close the distance between us and touch that spot under my earlobe, just like she used to.

"Voilà," she announced with a huge smile on her face. "All done!"

"Can I see it?" I asked, sitting up and stretching out my back.

"Let me just give it a quick wipe first." She grabbed something from her cart and rubbed the back of my neck with it. It was slightly cold which I was glad for. It cooled me down a little.

"And just remember okay, I haven't done many of this type of tattoo so it might not be exactly how you expect it to be. The other guys would probably do a better job of it but-"

"Stop it," I said, smiling at her reflection. "I'll love it."

"I hope so."

Alex had always been so self-assured that this unsure, hesitant side to her was actually quite endearing.

And I did love it. I knew I would. It was what it represented; beautiful. And how fitting that it be someone with whom I found so beautiful, and had spent such a beautiful time of my life with, to mark it on me.

"Thank you," I said sincerely, turning to look her in the eye without the mirror acting as a buffer this time.

"Your welcome," she said, turning only a small amount to place the small circular mirror she had held up to help me see behind me on to the cart.

"This has been… so random." I laughed a little and she did too, "but so fun. I'm glad we can be like this again."

"Me too."

I initiated it. I didn't intend to. it just happened. The same way gravity pulls your feet to the ground – without thought. With ease. Like it happened over and over and over again every day. I stepped closer to her. No more than an inch closer but enough to drive the intensity of the room up by thousands. My fingers found their way to hers. Gently touching without entwining. Like they were testing the water of an unknown sea to see if it was warm enough to dive into.

It was. Alex didn't look away as I sent a fiery gaze her way. She didn't pull back when I leaned forward and just before I kissed her, she wet her lips.

It was beautiful.


	21. Chapter 21

It hadn't been a surprise. I'd pretend it was, but from the very second that I heard Piper's voice this afternoon, I'd known this was how we'd end up. When I'd looked at her there had been an instant rush, an undeniable tension in the air that had all but written it in the stars to happen. As soon as I'd touched her bare skin I'd accepted our fate.

There wasn't any point in stopping it, really. Any thoughts of the sort that dared to flutter past my consciousness were instantly rejected.

Letting Piper kiss me, and more to the point, actively kissing her back was, in theory, a complex issue. Three simple juxtaposing truths that fought against each other.

The first; I loved Megan. I didn't want to hurt her.

The second; I was betraying her in the worst possible way, undoubtedly causing her the hurt I didn't want to bestow.

And the third; no-one else in the world made me feel how Piper did. I didn't care who that hurt in the process.

In reality though, nothing was simpler. Because while the first two truths were undeniably true, the third was the truest.

I loved Megan, but not enough. I had loved Piper more.

I didn't intend to hurt her, but even after everything we'd been through – all the ups and downs, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't do it one hundred times over to be with Piper.

Even in the cloud that Pipers lips were enveloping my judgement in, I knew that to be true. Given the chance I'd choose Piper over and over and over again. She was my crutch. My weakness. A flaw in my personality.

Infuriatingly, the only thing really getting in the way was Piper because she'd never been able to make up her mind about what she wanted, but there was something different in her now. Something that sparked the possibility of a brand-new life for us. If that spark hadn't been there I wouldn't have allowed this to happen. Piper might be my biggest weakness, but I wasn't foolish.

Something was different. The biggest being that Piper had finally gotten the guts to leave Larry. That was something I definitely didn't see coming. She'd moved out to live on her own, she'd found herself a career. She looked vibrant, refreshed. She dressed better, carried herself differently. Hell, she'd even decided to get a tattoo all on her own and instantly gone through with it. Not in the same silly, excitable way she had gotten her first one. That tiny little infinity symbol hidden away on her ribcage, but in a deliberate move, without a worry of what people might think.

That was the thing that had made this inevitable.

The taste of her lips on mine sealed our fate.

Eventually that kiss had to break. I needed oxygen and by the way Piper inhaled as soon as our lips broke I'd say she needed it too. Cheeks pleasantly blushed, noses still delicately touching, Piper smiled at me. The kind of smile that said to me, 'we both knew this would happen, and I'm not sorry for it'.

"I did tell you I had a girlfriend, right?"

"You did." She said, placing a soft kiss on the corner of my lips.

"We shouldn't be doing this."

"Shouldn't we?"

The confidence. It was so fucking hot. She tilted her head to the other side and kissed me again.

"A lot of shit has happened between us, Pipes." I said, not in protest, I just needed to hear that she was as willing to go through with this as I was and for the right reasons.

"I know. I do." There was still little space between us, and she kissed me again. Her hand still on my cheek. The other gently placed on the nook of my neck. "I know this is a fucked up situation." She spoke softly. Like what she was saying was only for me and no one else to hear. Not that there was anyone else there to hear it. "I know we're not perfect together and I don't think we ever will be… but I am not sorry this is happening. Ever since I lost you something has been missing and I didn't realise - or I couldn't admit - that it was you I was missing until that night when I got out of my mind drunk and called you. I thought I was over you. I really did. But then talking to you and seeing you…" she gave a little shrug, "I realised I wasn't. I'd taken all those feelings I had for you and turned them to anger when you went way. I got mad at you and somewhere along the line I forgot that I actually never was. It was just easier to be mad at you than to admit I still cared."

I understood completely. Everything she was saying… it was as if she'd plucked them straight from my own head. "I care about you too." I knew I should have said more. I knew that there was still issues we needed resolved. Stuff we needed to talk about that couldn't be ignored. But that talk wouldn't happen tonight. It couldn't. I was too transfixed on the moment to think clearly. Too lost in her eyes and the sweet scent of her. Too caught up in the thick, almost palpable sexual tension to be able to think up something coherent to say.

"If you don't want this I'll go. I swear. I'm not doing this to ruin your relationship. I just needed you to know that this is what I want." Those blue eyes flicked down to my lips and back again. "Just tell me what you want."

I didn't bother. I didn't have to. It was easier to show her and after standing so close to her, after kissing her, feeling her hot breath on my lips and her gentle touch graze my skin, I was done with talking. I needed to touch her. To grab her. To lay her on that reclining tattoo chair and do all the things we haven't done in far too long.

With one quick smile and while my hand slid down the curve of her back, I kissed her. Properly. Softly at first. Slowly. Taking my time to bathe in how good those lips felt and how wonderfully they tasted.

And then, blood rushing fast through every inch of me and the temperature in the room swiftly rising, the kisses very quickly became more passionate. More desperate. Deepened as soon as Piper's lips parted enough for my tongue to make its way into her mouth with a welcoming hum.

Her hands were tangled in my hair now. Nails gliding over my scalp and the back of my neck. I shivered. Pulled her tight to me.

There was a hunger in our kissing now. Not just in our kissing, but in the way we clung to each other, the way our hands spread over each others' bodies, desperate to touch whatever was in reach, and in the sounds we made. It reminded me, strangely, of that first really good meal I had once coming out of prison. It was so good that while I savoured the taste, I ravished it just like I'm ravishing her. Just like she's ravishing me. There was something primitive about it. Wild, almost.

With her hand cradling my jaw, she bit and tugged at my lip. We drew apart in a rush of breath but only for a moment. Once together again I slipped my hand under her shirt, feeling the instant warmth of the skin on her back. She hummed against my lips again and I couldn't help but smile back.

I'd nearly forgotten how easy it was to get her going.

With ease I slipped off her top while walking her in the direction of the chair and threw it somewhere to the side. My hands found their way up to her breasts where they rubbed against the lacy fabric before travelling down to unbutton her pants. All the while I directed her towards the chair with the intention of having her on her back, her body laying open for me to play with however I wanted but somewhere along the way she got the upper hand, switched us around and with a push I was on the chair and seconds later Piper was on her knees above me.

She was proud of herself for that. I knew it as soon as I opened my eyes and saw her grinning down at me. "What the fuck just happened?"

"I like being on top." She replied, removing my glasses with both hands and gently placing them somewhere to the side. "Don't you remember?"

"I'm starting to." I leaned forward and with Pipers help my top was swiftly pulled off and within seconds my lips hungrily captured hers again. I held her by the hips, tugging at her jeans to inch them down as much as I could while I kissed down her neck and cleavage. As soon as there was enough space, I slipped my hand down the front of her pants.

The moan Piper gave as my hand cupped her warmth was delicious. She rocked her hips into it and I slipped her panties to the side to let my fingers properly feel her.

"Fuck… _Alex_ ," she breathed into my ear, nails gripping my shoulder as her hips continued to rock against me.

"Slow down, baby." I said, stilling her with my other hand. Sure by the noises she was making and how wet she was that if she continued those movements she'd be coming sooner than I wanted.

Piper might be on top but I was still in control of that, at least.

"I need you." she purred, teeth nibbling on the flesh of my ear lobe. Her hands trailing down my chest to cup my breasts and tease at my nipples. Her thumbs rolling over them in sync and then nipping them. Pain and pleasure devilishly mixed together.

"Shit." The words came out with a rush of breath as my head hit the back of the chair. A throbbing between my legs aching to be tended to. I squeezed my thighs together to try to ease some of the building pressure, but it just made things worse and for a second I thought maybe I'd be the one coming first.

Or maybe not. Because in the few seconds I'd taken to relish in the pleasure, Piper had used for her advantage. Riding her way to her own orgasm.

That couldn't happen. I sat forward. Clutched her hip again and pulled my fingers from her.

"What the _fuck_." She complained, catching her breath and trying in vain to push herself towards me. Dirty blonde hair all out of place, dark, lustful eyes staring deep at me and cheeks beyond flushed. "I was so close."

"I know." One brow flicked up at her. "I could tell."

I saw a hint of a grin on Piper's face before she could hide it. "You're such an asshole." She said, in the same way she's told me numerous times in the past. The kind of way without a hint of venom. The kind that said 'you're being an asshole, but I fucking love it."

I kissed her again. I had to. Her lips were a shade or two redder than they were before, beautifully swollen and completely irresistible. "I've missed you." I said with lips still pressed onto hers.

And then across her cheek. And then down her neck.

Little kisses. Some placed at her shoulder and some directly on her throat where they felt the vibration of her moans.

Driven by the kind of lust I hadn't felt in so long I nipped at her skin. Sucked and bit and sucked some more. Leaving marks on her neck and some on her chest.

Marks that I was allowed to leave now because there was no-one she needed to hide them from.

Further down my lips travelled until they reached the hard nipple under that lacy bra. I drew a circle around it with my tongue before releasing her flesh from the material. Held the weight of her with one hand, squeezing her while I took as much of her breast into my mouth as I could, continuing to play with that hard nub with my tongue.

Led by Pipers hand, mine found its way back down her pants and this time I didn't hold back. My fingers slipped instantly and easily inside her. My thumb curled its way around her clit and Piper welcomed its touch with another moan of my name.

God I'd missed that sound.

But I needed to feel her, too. The heat between my legs couldn't be ignored any longer so I unbuttoned my pants and took her hand just as she had taken mine and slid it down.

"Yes." I said, somewhere between a sigh of relief and a moan. I didn't even care that she wasn't doing much with it, too lost in her own pleasure to focus on anything else at all. I just needed to feel her and that was enough.

No longer bothered with slowing her down, I let Piper ride my fingers. Moving and curling them perfectly in time with her thrusts. It may have been years since we'd done this, but it didn't feel like it. We both still knew exactly how to turn the other on.

She came crashing down around me a few minutes later in a flurry of moans and curses.

I watched it. I watched the way her face changed as it succumbed to the strokes of my hand and the way her body shook and then went rigid as it soaked up the release flowing through her veins.

It was worth it, I thought as I watched her come down from her high, still softly working my fingers between her legs.

Whatever storm this encounter was going to bring it was worth it, because this – being with her, not just fucking her but actually _being_ with her, was like coming out of the rain. It was like the weight of the world being lifted.

Bring on the shit-storm motherfuckers, because this was the way it was meant to be.


	22. Chapter 22

Together, our breath begun to steady, the haze of lust started to clear, and we were left staring at each other in the bright lights of the tattoo studio. Both of Alex's hands were resting on my thighs. Mine were on her shoulders. A chill came across the back of my neck as the sweat I'd worked up tried to cool me down. I suddenly remembered there was a tattoo there and with that memory I registered the tightness of it.

And then, out of nowhere, we laughed.

It started as a smile that crawled onto my face as I stared into her eyes, hardly able to believe what just happened. A smile that she returned. A smile that turned into a grin that turned into a few short chuckles that turned into laughter.

"That's not usually the kind of reaction I get after sex." Alex said as her laughter started to fade.

"I don't even know why I'm laughing," I replied, tucking a long strand of raven hair behind her ear. It wasn't even out of place, I just wanted to run my fingers through her hair again. "It just came out, I'm sorry. That was weird."

"Don't apologise," she said, still smiling, "it's not weird. Unexpected, sure, but not weird." Her hands squeezed lightly at my legs and her teeth scratched over her bottom lip. "I haven't heard that laugh in a long time."

With the sudden realisation that we were still both naked from the waist up, the smiles started to fade. In a blink the room was hot again. My heart racing. Eyes set on those plump red lips. I leaned in to kiss her with both hands cupping her face. A shiver danced up my spine as Alex slid her hands up to my waist. A different shiver than before. The whole of my body becoming consumed with warmth and goosebumps.

"Hmm," I hummed into her lips. Supremely content with the way things were. Happy to stay there for much, much longer, but our tender kiss had to break at some point and reality had to come reluctantly back.

"We should really wrap up that tattoo."

"Mmh. Do we have to?" I sulked, resting my forehead to hers.

"Yeah," she chuckled back, "we do."

"I don't want this to be over."

"Who said it was?" There was a devilish look on her face. One that promised this wasn't the end of our encounter and that - only that - made me shuffle reluctantly off of her and pull myself together.

We laughed as we fumbled around for our clothes, giggled like love-struck teenagers when my bra was found half-way across the room.

Alex cleaned and wrapped my tattoo, gave instructions on how to take care of it and when we weren't talking the quiet was nice too. Comfortable. Natural.

When we left that tattoo room, still hot and smelling faintly of sex, the brightness of the reception area surprised me. It wasn't even eight o'clock yet, but our time cooped up in that little room made it feel like it should be the middle of the night.

"Have you eaten?" Alex asked, walking behind the reception area to, presumably, close up the cash register.

I knew she meant food, but after what had just happened my mind instantly went somewhere else. "Not yet."

Alex eyed me over the cash register, her brow shot up and she smiled. She must have caught the glint in my eye, the suggestive curl of my lip. "That's not what I meant," she said, sounding amused but definitely appreciative of where I was going with it, "but I like your thinking, kid."

She started talking about places to go and eat, but I couldn't really focus on anything she was saying.

It was as if we'd only just met, the way I found myself in awe of every detail of her. The sway of her shiny black hair when she walked, the way her long fingers would touch and needlessly reset her glasses on her nose. The velvet sound of her voice, the warmth of her throaty laughter, the grace of her slender neck and the flawlessness of that porcelain skin.

How could I have ever let her go?

That was a mistake I wouldn't be making again.

With that thought came the painful reminder that she was as unavailable as I had been back when we were together, but she didn't seem to care. Just as I hadn't.

Alex closed up the shop and we walked down the block, looking for somewhere good to eat. Walking close together but not too close. Close enough that passers-by would think us nothing more than friends, but close enough that every now and then my hand might brush hers or our shoulders might gently collide.

Every touch felt important. Deliberate. Each one sent me deeper down that awestruck hole, made me question further how I'd managed to have even half of a life without that touch in it.

With neither of us in the mood to sit in somewhere and eat, we got burritos from a stand and ate them as we walked through the park, heading nowhere in particular.

"You're quiet," Alex said when the burritos were gone and a chill was starting to hit the air. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," I lied, unwilling to ruin how nice being with her was by letting her know I was wondering whether we were about to fall into the same trap as before. Where one of us held our relationship back from blossoming into what it could be.

I couldn't yet ask her if the relationship she was in was one she was willing to give up for me. Too afraid she'd say it wasn't.

"You're definitely thinking about something," she nudged me with her shoulder. "You're never this quiet."

I nudged her back, smiled up at her and then nodded towards my apartment building. We hadn't been walking aimlessly after-all. "This is my building. Do you want to come up?"

Alex stepped in towards me, put a hand lightly on my waist. "What a stupid question."

I think she was about to lean down and kiss me, but before she could make a move her phone rang. She looked at the screen, seemed to deliberate over whether to answer or not and in that single look I knew it was _her_. Megan.

"Sorry," she said, giving me an apologetic look. "I should get this."

"Yeah, of course." I took a step back and put my hands in my pockets, filled with a sense of shame, of awkwardness. I wondered if this is how Alex had felt.

Alex turned as she answered the phone and walked a few steps away. I couldn't hear what she was saying, her words a series of mumbles. I didn't really try to listen. I didn't know how I'd feel if I had to hear her speak lovingly to this woman she loved, but I knew it wouldn't feel good.

When she came back she looked different. Annoyed, perhaps, or flustered from the adrenaline of almost being caught with someone she shouldn't be with. I'd felt that before.

"Sorry about that, I-"

"You don't have to explain." I said quickly, "Do you need to go?"

For a few moments she just looked at me. Evaluating the consequences, I guessed. Weighing up the pros and cons of continuing this thing we have. With all that had happened between us, I wouldn't have been surprised if she left now. if she decided that the cons definitely do outweigh the pros and that I wasn't worth the risk, but she didn't.

"No, I don't." and just like that she was taking my face in one of her hands and crashing her lips onto mine. "Come on, take me to your apartment."

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to cheat on Megan. It's not exactly something I'm proud of, it was just easier than I expected it to be. We hadn't been getting on so great lately, and maybe that helped a little. Since that day I'd told her I'd met Piper, something had shifted between us. Something neither of us really acknowledged. We were still the same as usual just… less. We had sex less, we said 'I love you' less, we talked less. Not enough to make a big deal out of, but enough to notice.

That was why it was so easy to walk with Piper up to her apartment. That was what eased my conscience as I kissed her, as I pressed her up against her bedroom door and kissed every inch of her body. I didn't care about Megan in those moments. When I was with Piper I cared about little else other than her.

"You have a nice place." I said returning to her room a couple of hours later with two glasses of water, stepping over the trail our clothes made all the way to the bed.

Piper laughed a little and sat up when I handed her one of the glasses. "You've only just noticed?"

"Sorry, I was a little too distracted when we came in earlier to peruse the ambiance of your apartment, and I didn't hear you complaining about it then." I placed my glass of water on the nightstand beside her bed and crawled back in, kissing her as I closed my body in close to hers.

"Why is this so easy?" She said when the kissing had stopped and we were just lying there facing each other, enjoying the moment before it ended.

"What do you mean?"

"We always just seem to… I don't know… fall into each other. Even when we shouldn't."

"Why shouldn't we?"

"Because you have Megan. And I had Larry. And we were supposed to be happy with those people and yet this keeps happening. Why is it so easy for us to betray the people we're with to be with each other?"

And there it was. The guilt. Hearing Piper speak her name brought everything flooding back at once. Megan and I were good before. Before Piper came back into my life. I had loved her, and I still do. It's just that being with Piper is a whole other kind of love. The kind I can never seem to get away from.

Megan didn't deserve this. I shuffled back from her without really realising what I was doing, but Piper noticed.

"Sorry. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable about it. I'm just saying, it's crazy the effect we have on each other."

"It is." I agreed. "We have a connection, I guess. One that we haven't ever had with anyone else. That probably why it's so easy for us to do _this_ … But we can't keep doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Going in half way. You were seeing someone, I'm with someone now, I was helping to run a criminal organisation and then there was prison. We've never been just us. We've never been settled and if we're going to do this, if I'm going to leave Megan for us then I need to know this isn't a half way thing anymore."

" _You_ want to be settled?" Piper grinned, shuffling closer to me again. The heat of her skin pressing against mine.

"I have a steady job now," I returned her grin and held her waist. "I'm a grown up."

"Ooh wow," she teased, "look at you, a grown up."

"Shut up." I chuckled. "I'm serious… and I'm not _completely_ settled, okay? I have a job that I love that keeps me here, but I still want to travel, I want to do out of the ordinary things and see out of the ordinary people. What I need is someone who is going to be there by my side no matter where that takes me."

"Well, as long as it doesn't take you back to prison then I can be that person. I want to be that person, one hundred percent. I love you, I do, but I just don't have what I takes to do that again."

I nodded. It was a fair ask and one I was happy to oblige of. I had no intention of going back there either. "It's a deal." I kissed her, long and slow. "I should go." I said after a while, before becoming too intoxicated by her lips.

"Mmh," she groaned, "why? Stay the night."

"I can't." I said, running a hand gently through her hair. "I have to speak to Megan."


End file.
